


even bad wolves can be good

by nagia



Series: sure to lure someone bad [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Belly Dancing, Dancer Stiles, F/M, Gen, Girl!Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, POV Derek Hale, Scent Kink, kinkmeme fill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:49:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It might be easier to get her out of his head if she hadn't been on her knees the first time he saw her.</p><p>OR: Scott McCall doesn't know how to talk to women, even women he's practically related to, and there are not enough self-inflicted concussions in the world to restore Derek's peace of mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so based on [this prompt](http://tnw-kinkmeme.livejournal.com/2665.html?thread=26985#t26985), because why not. Title taken from "Little Red Riding Hood," sung by [Jade Bennett](https://soundcloud.com/ginomatteomusic/little-red-riding-hood).

LATE SUMMER 2009

It's a peaceful night. The insects around her all buzz, letting out low droning noises that mean god knows what in bug speak. A soft breeze has rolled in from who knows where, carrying the scent of pine and dirt and fresh cut grass. Stiles closes her eyes and listens to the breeze play through the graveyard, drifting and chasing. It snakes along her ankles, whispers through the shorn grass.

So Stiles opens her eyes and stares down at the gravestone. It's solid black, with the name CLAUDIA STILINSKI carved into it, almost silvery in the fading light. Beneath her name and the dates, they'd engraved the words _Nothing gold can stay_. But nothing about her mother had been gold, save the honey-brown eyes that Stiles had inherited.

"I'm sorry," she says again. She's actually lost count of how many times she's said it, but it bears repeating. Endless repeating. "I'm so sorry. I know you were scared. I was just... I was scared too, and I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry I made it harder on you."

And, because it needs to be said — even if she doesn't actually believe her mother will hear, Stiles adds in a near whisper, "Thank you for holding on."

* * *

Later that week, in her psychiatrist's office, Stiles crosses her legs and lifts her chin. The office is a soothing place, with wooden blinds on its tall windows, gauzy curtains, and the fact that every wall is lined in books. Not even all the books are about psychiatry or ADHD.

Maybe the calm of the room is why she can say, "I don't want to talk about my ADHD."

Dr. Williams only blinks her green eyes once before she nods. "Was the anniversary any easier this year?" 

"No," Stiles says. She shakes her head, her eyes falling half closed, and adds, "I'm tired of feeling guilty." 

"Your mother's death," Sarah says, very softly, "wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done." 

"I could have made it easier on her." 

"You were eight years old." 

"I could have been a better kid," Stiles snaps. "I get that I couldn't have changed anything, couldn't have cured her. But I still..." 

"Have you given any more thought to my suggestion? Turning your grief into something productive?

"I have," Stiles says, and feels a pang at the thought of losing her buzz cut. "And I think I'm ready."

* * *

For the first time in seven years, Stiles skips her monthly hair appointment. She can go until she gets ten inches from the nape of her neck.

* * *

JANUARY 2011

Stiles has never really been big on the more obvious girly stuff. She wears skirts every now and then, usually some shade of red or a particularly ugly plaid, but she wears jeans under them. She wears nerdy tees under baggy button-downs, doesn't really bother dressing her hair. It's easier to throw it into a pony-tail or a hat, and she doesn't really think of it as _her_ hair. It's for somebody else.

Maybe once it's woven into a wig, it'll go to some adorable little girl with leukemia. The little girl will brush her wig every night, and be happy to have her own beautiful hair, will like having it in precisely the amount Stiles hates it.

But she's not a total tomboy. Sure, Stiles doesn't bother with make-up or piercings or manicures, but she does love pedicures and painted toenails. Her father had tried to sign her up for ballet lessons. She'd taken one look at a bellydancer spinning and spinning and suddenly falling to the floor and chosen bellydance instead, and even if she gave it up for lacrosse, she'd been good at it.

She idly listens to the police scanner while she runs her a hairdryer over her toes and then inspects her handiwork. She's never really thought of herself as having the fine motor control or hand-eye coordination for painting her own fingernails, but this shade of red is delicious. Frankly, she'd probably paint her eyeballs with it if she could.

She's just debating the attempt when Deputy Wojcik radios dispatch and rattles off a string of numbers that sends Stiles running for her red hoodie.

* * *

After that, there's a baseball bat, a drive to the preserve, an encounter with her father, and being made to drive home in shame. Her father is so furious they don't speak much that night.


	2. Chapter 2

Derek hears the male voice first. Faint and tinny, as if from a speaker. He feels his eyes narrow and instinctively tilts his head to listen: the voice is young, judging by timbre and mention of skipping lacrosse practice; single heartbeat, so it's one person on a phone. No scent of gunpowder, no subtle sound of handcuffs, so not a cop. The footsteps are even, carefully placed. An attempt at stealth?

He hears a faint pop, the snick of a twig, and leaves sliding on mud. A young woman's voice curses in a startled hiss, and the first thing he sees when he clears a knot of briars is a spray of golden-brown hair, a flash of white throat, and honey colored eyes in a pale face. The rest of the scene registers: teenaged girl on her knees in an awkward back-bend, her throat exposed.

"What are you doing here? This is private property," he demands, because despite what his instincts are telling him, this is not a misplaced submissive gesture.

"Yeah, Scotty, I, uh, have to call you back. But you tell Mrs. Soomekh I've still got the T-drop, if you see her," the girl says, and Derek sees the blue glow at her ear. Bluetooth headset?

"Why," Derek says again, "are you here?"

"Inhaler. Me and Scott — Scotty and I were in the preserve last night, just fucking around, stupid stuff, but we dropped his inhaler," the girl says in a rush. Her heart rate is fast, erratic, but he suspects she's just startled and a little afraid. She levers herself to her feet, strangely slow, and Derek has to fight himself not to let his gaze drop to her hips. As it is, he can't miss it when she crams a small scrap of red into the back pocket of fitted jeans.

Derek digs in his jacket pockets. The girl's eyes follow his motions, and he can't help noticing that her pupils dilate, irises contracting. Could be fear, could be arousal, and he really needs it to be neither. So he says, "What were you two doing to the trees? You took a chunk out of some bark back where I found this."

He holds up the inhaler for her to see, then tosses it to her underhand.

She catches it easily, but her heart has begun to pound, and blood rushes to her face. " _Please_ ," she says, and even though her voice is normal, her pulse is wrong for humiliation and right for a lie, "don't tell the sheriff, but alcohol may have been a factor. So I really don't know what we were thinking."

It's an excellent lie. If he couldn't hear her heart and the very faint notes of strain to her tone, he'd believe her.

"Why the sheriff?"

She rolls her eyes. "He's my dad."

"Whatever," he says, and turns away. He doesn't expect to see her again.

* * *

Naturally, he does. Again, and again, and again. Most of the time, her hair is smooth, straight, but clearly unattended — brushed once or twice, and then pushed behind her ears, or knotted into a bun, or swept off her face in a messy ponytail. She uses slightly tangy fruit-based perfumes, but the natural scent of her skin is something warm, perhaps closer to vanilla or heated sugar.

Once, he presses her against her bedroom door, using his arms to block her in and the weight of his stare to pin her. 

She raises a small can of something that smells like ten thousand kinds of pepper and at least twelve kinds of angry acidic chemicals, and says, very calmly, "This is DefTech OC mach four. Its Scoville Heat Unit is something like twenty five thousand, and it sticks like a bitch. You keep standing there like a dick to try and scare the sheriff's daughter in her bedroom, and I'll ruin your week."

He never attempts physical intimidation again. Not even when she threatens to leave him for dead in the middle of the road. He begs her, instead, and though his pride hates every moment of it, the thought of begging Stiles Stilinski for anything does uncomfortable things to him when he's alone. He's never been particularly submissive, but he could be, if that's what it takes to —

No. He stops indulging those thoughts, because they bring back blonde curls and make him sick to his stomach. He distracts himself by winding a tourniquet around his arm. Stiles picks up the bone saw and stares at him, and her honeyed eyes look sick.

He lets her rope him into some kind of half-naked show for a high school friend (and then, when he leaves the room to grab one of the Sheriff's shirts, she triumphantly shrieks, "You were perving on my cousin! The Sheriff's nephew! I know about that thing with you and Jackson and Lydia's mom's pool! You owe me!"). He could refuse, could try and maintain his dignity, but she wouldn't be pointedly suggesting he strip simply for her own amusement. She's ruthless, quite possibly on a scale with sociopathy, but that means that she thinks him being shirtless is going to get them what they want.

He feels both gratified and betrayed when he notices the way her eyes linger, the faint briny-sweet smell of her arousal.

After, once he has her in the car, he leans in close — close enough to smell the warm, sugary skin scent underneath the creamsicle bodywash — and murmurs into her ear: "I could smell exactly how much you enjoyed that. Never again."

* * *

After Peter's death, his confrontations with Stiles actually start to thaw, become less confrontations and more meet-ups. She doesn't seem happy with him, but she also clearly lacks Scott's antipathy. He almost asks her about it, but it's not a conversation he can have on the phone, and when he's with her in person, the way her hair catches on make-up sticky lips or the subtle warm sugar scent of her distracts him. He has a hard enough time staying on track with research into the kanima and whatever the hell is going on with her red-headed crush.

Bitten by Peter, but unchanged and evidently hallucinating? He doesn't like it.

"Seriously," Stiles says one afternoon. She'd moved her laptop to a piece of plastic on the floor and now sits in front of it, perfectly comfortable on her knees in an awkward-looking stretch, "I'm going to save her from this, and then I am going to bury my face between those creamy, perfect thighs of hers."

Growing up in a house with fellow teenagers and two married couples not only meant an early sex education but also learning to turn his visual imagination the hell off. He's never been so grateful for learning how not to think.

"And if I'm lucky, it'll be a good day for her, you know, a forty percent evil day, and she won't crush my trachea with those wonderful thighs I mentioned."

"Make sure she's not the kanima, first," he grunts, and tries not to think about how much he hates the thought of Stiles sleeping with someone else.

Stiles laughs. "I can think of worse situations to be paralyzed in."


	3. Chapter 3

Two days later, Derek kind of wants to kill everything. Or himself. Except he actually doesn't want to die, and some part of him blames Stiles for this, as if maybe if she hadn't made that fucking joke, he wouldn't now be paralyzed in eight feet of water.

And he's going to be stuck here for at least another hour.

"So glad for all that floor work and the hip drops," Stiles gasps. "Never thought my killer whale thighs would be all that stood between me and somebody else dying. By the way, wet denim is the devil."

"What happened with McCall?"

"Fucking dinner," Stiles says, tone dark and dangerous enough to drive the scent of chlorine from his nose for a moment, to make him swear he smells something else, something like bread and blood, "with the fucking _Argents_."

* * *

He's still not steady enough to drive when McCall crashes through the skylight and scares off the kanima. He's been in the water for an hour and a half, and though he can move his fingers, he can't feel his legs. He finally gets a look at Stiles, though; her clothes cling, the line of her bra easily visible, and her hair hangs around her shoulders, limp and bedraggled.

Scott helps them out of the pool. Stiles pushes him, Scott pulls, and then Derek finds himself lying with his cheek on the tile, one foot still in the water. Stiles heaves herself up after him, huffing out a heavy sigh.

"I'm just going to lie here for a million years," she says to the room at large. "Scotty, you can't leave me hangin' like this."

"I was stuck with the Argents!" McCall replies. He sits down next to them, sighing from deep in his stomach, as if he's just as drained. As if he has any _right_ to be as tired as Stiles.

But Stiles only huffs out a laugh and says, "Gotta love coming in second behind the booty call. Just promise I'm not third on your list, okay, Scotty?"

If Derek had said it, it would have been an angry jab. But Stiles sounds warm, almost like she's bringing back an old joke. She's forgiven McCall. She lies still on the cold tile, breathing, and says nothing else. 

Derek lies next to her, and now that his nose isn't inches above chlorinated pool water, he can actually smell her. Mostly he smells feet and shoes, chlorine, but she's close enough that he can almost taste the tangerine-cream shampoo and the peppermint body wash and the sweet skin smell. There's a faint note of something else, though, and Derek turns his head to look at her, letting his mouth fall open and tongue moisten the air just a touch to catch the scent.

Something warm and yeasty, almost bready. Salty, too, almost but not quite the sugar-salt-brine of sex. And the very, very faint odor of blood.

Oh christ no, he thinks, just before Stiles flops dramatically and says, "Okay, Scotty, if Hale hasn't snarked at us and Batmanned into the night, it's because he physically can't. Help me get him to the Jeep."

"Erica," he says, and Stiles looks over at his beta, still broken and unconscious where she fell. 

"Yeah, okay," Stiles says. "I'll get her. Scott, you and your werepuppy strength get to take on tall, dark, and heavy."

* * *

Stiles actually does haul Erica to the Jeep. McCall half-carries him, and Derek genuinely hates the feeling of his legs and feet dragging on the ground. He also hates being shoved unceremoniously into the Jeep's back seat. He can't even flail for balance as he tips over and smacks his head on the passenger side window. He's lucky in that it's about the furthest away from the driver's seat as he can get. 

Stiles pushes Erica into the car more gently. Either Stiles isn't holding a grudge about the concussion, or she's attracted to Erica. Or maybe it's some sort of "females involved with the supernatural" solidarity. He kind of doubts that last one, but it's possible. Stiles crawls over Erica to lean in and buckle his seat belt, then snaps Erica's, too.

McCall takes shotgun, but leaves the door open until Stiles climbs into the driver's seat. The two doors thump closed simultaneously. Scott reaches out, extending a closed fist. Perhaps Stiles hasn't entirely forgiven him, because she starts the car rather than bump fists.

They've only been in the car five minutes — and Derek's train car is half an hour north of town — when the scent of Stiles's skin begins to waft to the back. Derek hears McCall take in a deep breath. If he were the praying sort, he'd pray that McCall would have the sense not to remark on it. But really, Derek doesn't even bother to hope anymore. 

McCall leans over, blatantly pushing his nose into Stiles's space. Derek fights down a growl. He has no actual say over who gets up close and personal with Stiles. But he doesn't like the thought of McCall touching her, smelling her. Not after he let her down so thoroughly tonight.

"Did you change your perfume or something?" Scott runs a hand through his hair and then laughs, a little breathless. "You're changing way too fast now. I mean first that mess on your head, now new perfume? What's next, lipstick?"

Tapping his forehead against the window won't actually give him a concussion, but it might make him feel better. Not only does McCall clearly have _half_ the self preservation instincts of a suicidal prey animal, he is also aggressively stupid. Who even talks to women like that?

"I don't wear perfume, Scotty." Stiles drums her fingers on the steering wheel.

"Did you change your body wash, then? Your shampoo? I'm not kidding, you smell different, and I really like it. It's all... like, moldy bread and salty and kind of coppery and warm."

Stiles's voice is flat. "I smell like moldy bread and salt and copper — those last two smells, by the way, amount to blood. So I smell like moldy bread and blood, and that smells great to you?"

She doesn't actually ask 'Are you fucking kidding me,' but she also doesn't need to.

"I wear lip gloss. Which you clearly have never noticed. I wear lip gloss, and I used to dance. I was good at it. But you wanted to play lacrosse, and you didn't want to do it alone, so now Coach Finstock thinks I'm a guy." The words come out clipped and tight, and Derek can tell that none of these things is the thing Stiles is angry about.

"You know, back when I was trying to get out of playing, he tried to set me up with you. I think he thinks you're gay." McCall sounds miserable.

"Gross. We used to take baths together." There's a pause. He hears the subtle sound of Stiles swallowing, and then she says, softer, "We used to take baths together, and I gave up dancing for lacrosse, and you left me in a pool alone for an hour and a half because you couldn't... what? Figure out a lie? Bring yourself to lie to your star-crossed girlfriend's evil fucking family?"

"Stiles," McCall says, and Derek can actually smell the misery on him. He smells of both guilt and shame, of failure, of regret.

"And now you don't even know that I wear lip gloss, and you just make fun of me…of me trying to do something good with all those memories of my mom, and you tell me that smelling like moldy bread and blood smells good to you? Who _are_ we, Scotty? How did we get here?" 

"You said hikers found half a body in the woods," McCall says, and his voice winds tight as a string. "You said, 'We're going,' and we went, and you got stopped by your dad, and I got fucking bitten."

Stiles says nothing in reply for a moment that seems to buzz in the silence. Derek turns his head to look back out the window, at the dark streets and the bright, meaningless lights.

And then she says, tonelessly, "I know, Scotty. It's been so terrible for you, hasn't it? You made first line, and now you're co-captain of the lacrosse team, and you have a fucking diabetic coma of a relationship with a girl just as hot as Lydia, who, you know, I've loved for years and who also fucking _threw herself_ at you on the full moon."

McCall actually starts to growl.

"Don't play 'my life is so hard,' with _me_ , Scott Ramiro McCall. I just spent an hour and a half keeping somebody else from drowning while you were eating _dinner_." And then she shifts the Jeep's gear and swerves into a new lane, for once not bothering to use her turn signal. Derek feels his stomach flop; Stiles has always used her damn turn signals, and bitched out anyone who doesn't. She's bitched out _him_ for neglecting a turn signal on a deserted road.

"You really don't get it."

"I've consistently been the only one to try."

After that, they ride in silence until Stiles pulls up at the McCall house. McCall says nothing as he leaves the car. He doesn't slam the door, doesn't stomp as he makes his way up the steps. Stiles's heart rate is surprisingly calm.

Did he just watch a friendship collapse? A friendship that has clearly spanned ten or more years, survived werewolf bites, murder, and hunters? Derek isn't sure, but he seethes in his seat and quietly hates the Argents. This is all their fault somehow. (This is all his fault, really, he's the one who let Kate in, and if he hadn't —)

"God," Erica says, apparently conscious but silent for most of the argument. "Boys are such bitches."

Stiles laughs. "They really, really are."

* * *

No one says anything for the rest of the ride. Stiles surprises him by not even turning on music; she drums her fingers endlessly on the steering wheel. Once they arrive at the abandoned train station, she helps Erica out of the car and into their base first, unbuckling her and deftly half-carrying her away. Derek's stomach clenches at his injured beta being out of his visual range, but he can still hear her steady heartbeat, and that's almost enough.

Derek manages into unbuckle his own seat belt with shaky fingers, swings the door open, and steps out. He half collapses on legs that don't want to work, slumping to the ground.

Moments later, Stiles gets his arm over her shoulder and helps him to his feet. His steps are staggering and fine tremors run through her body as they move, but eventually he finds a seat and closes his eyes. It's ridiculous how exhausted he is from fighting the toxin; Stiles must share his exhaustion, because she flops down next to him.

The quiet between them is almost companionable. Derek searches for ways to say it, ways to explain. He has no interest in defending McCall — so far as he's concerned, the omega deserved every word of the reaming he received — but he also has no interest in watching the Argents destroy another family. Even if that destruction is figurative. (That Stiles and McCall are family in the way that matters, Derek does not doubt.)

"Thinking pretty loudly over there, big guy," Stiles says. He hears the soft flutter of her eyelids as she closes her eyes.

"You _do_ smell different." He hears Erica try to sit up, apparently fascinated by the absolute train wreck of a conversation he's about to get into. Maybe he shouldn't do this, but. "Look." Shit, her eyes are closed. "Listen, anyway. I don't like McCall. I'm not about to defend his thing with the Argents, but."

Stiles makes an annoyed noise and shifts in her seat. More of the scent wafts toward him, and he has to forcibly resist the urge to roll over and bury his nose where her shoulder meets her throat.

This is, he thinks, the objectively worst conversation he's ever had that didn't involve the fire or Laura's death. But he sighs and says, "You're ovulating. It produces a pheromone that isn't…necessarily pleasant, but is attractive. And that changes your scent."

"So yo're telling me that my, what, fertility pheromones smell like fucking moldy bread and blood? So you're telling me that Scott was right about one thing, so maybe he was right to leave us both to drown?"

"It's more like yeast," Derek says before he can think about what he's saying, because he is apparently an idiot who wants to be pepper sprayed. "And no. I just…I thought you should know."

"The first time you voluntarily share information," she grumbles, "without me having to pry out your damn wolfy teeth, and it's about my uterus."

But she doesn't pepper spray him. Derek counts it as a win.

Right up until Erica says, "Werewolf pheromone weirdness is the fucking _funniest_. Get all up in his face, Stiles. Do it for science. I could go for a little man-torture right now."

Stiles is sitting too close for him to miss the spike in her pulse or the sharp note of fear in her scent. He's used to her heart pounding when he's around — he knows he startles her — but the intense fear smell is new.

Before Derek can really start wondering when she started to fear him and why, Stiles says. "I like some good old-fashioned man-torture as much as the next girl. but I've had enough creeperwolf skin-sniffing extravaganzas for one lifetime, thanks. My throat is not for grown men to bury their noses in."

And with that, Stiles heaves herself up and leaves the rail car. Derek turns his face toward Erica and lets his eyes flash red. She casts him an amused glance.

Derek digs his claws into his thighs. Perhaps, if he can force the wolf to heal the wounds there, he'll metabolize the kanima venom faster. After that, he'll have to head to the pool again. Hopefully before any custodial staff: he has samples to collect.


	4. Chapter 4

It's surprisingly easy to break into the pool. He doesn't even need to go through the hole in the skylight. The Sheriff hasn't posted so much as a watch, so Derek simply forces a door and makes his way inside.

He smells the chlorine first. After that, it's a strange blend of unknown adults, the kanima, Erica, and, just faintly, himself and Stiles. They spent so much time physically close that their scents have intertwined, and he can still catch weak traces of her pheromones. The way both her skin smell and the pheromones have meshed with his scent is... gratifying. He shakes his head to clear it and prowls the room, following the kanima's trail until he can find some of its venom.

He finds some on the floor near the pool, from where the kanima had chased Stiles during her dash for her phone. He kneels, sniffs it. But there's no human scent attached; it just smells slimy and medicinal, so Derek grabs a wide shard of the shattered mirror and scoops up the poison.

After that, he casts a jaundiced eye on the scene. But he doesn't see anything they need to clean up, so he turns on his heel and leaves.

* * *

Not much happens during the rest of the weekend. Isaac returns shortly after Derek gets back from the trip to the pool. He sniffs delicately at the train car, then turns to give Derek a puzzled look. Derek makes no explanation, only stows the venom in a safe place and finds a comfortable place to lie down.

He doesn't want to admit it even to himself, but he's fucking exhausted from the day he's had.

So he thinks. He tries to plan his next move. He'll test Whittemore first — he bit the boy, but there's been no sign of a change. After that, it's Stiles's redheaded crush. He's honestly not sure which one he's hoping will be the kanima. Killing Lydia will affect Stiles's opinion of him and his back, ruining any chance of McCall joining him (if that's not ruined already), but if it's Jackson, that means his decision to bite the teen was even worse than he's begun to suspect.

Night has already fallen on Monday when Scott McCall shows up in the depot, shouting his name.

"Scott," Derek says, trying to keep his voice smooth and calm. The teen's presence here — and the volume with which he was trying to summon Derek, trying to call him like a damned dog or something — sets off every single territorial instinct he has. The words 'Get the hell out' hover on his tongue, but he doesn't say them. Not yet.

"What did you _do_?"

"I honestly have no idea. What terrible thing have I done, Scott?"

"What did you tell her about me, huh? After she dropped me off at my place?"

Ah, so that's what this is about. "Stilinski still hasn't forgiven you?"

"What did you say to her?" The shout rings off the train cars. 

Derek bites his cheek for a moment, because as much as he'd like to grab McCall by the face and slam his head into some still-echoing metal until he learns how to address an alpha, he can't actually afford to do that. He'd also like to snidely point out that he's not the one who hung up on Stiles, not the one who chose making nice with the Argents over helping his friend. Can't do that either.

"I told her why her scent changed."

"Bullshit! She wouldn't quit lacrosse over that."

Derek just stares. He even allows his stare to stay blank for a moment before turning it into a glare. Are they really doing this? McCall is really having some kind of impotent fury attack over a _sports team_? For that matter, he has a hard time imagining Stiles walking away from lacrosse. 

What has his life become that he has to deal with stupid teenaged drama?

"We didn't talk about lacrosse. I told her why you said she smelled different, she pitched a fit about being sniffed, she left." 

_My throat is not for grown men to bury their noses in_ , she'd said. What does that even mean? What grown man has been scenting her that closely? There's only been one other adult male werewolf in Beacon Hills, but when would Peter have had the opportunity, and why would he...? A cold knot forms in his stomach, grips him by his intestines. What did Peter _do_?

"That can't be everything," McCall says. His shoulders are slightly hunched, and though his brows have lowered in fury, his eyes are wide and mouth pouty in a plea. "There has to be something else going on."

"There isn't. Now, if you're not here to join my pack..." He trails off, let his silence imply _get the hell out_.

McCall blows his breath out in a disgusted noise, but turns on his heel and leaves.

* * *

Derek heads out into the preserve for a run, still trying to plan his next moves. He doesn't like any of his options. Killing teenagers, killing people who should by rights be members of his pack? It leaves a sick hollowness in his stomach. But neither instinct nor what remains of his conscience will allow him to ignore a threat to Beacon Hills.

Beacon Hills is his. Its citizens are his. He doesn't necessarily _like_ the town or its folk — too many memories, too much ash in his mouth — but he will protect them. As best he's able.

The concept isn't easy to explain to his betas.

"Did they give you the key to the city?" Isaac asks the question with a lopsided grin. He thinks he's being clever.

Derek doesn't snarl at him. His own father might have, but Isaac needs…something else. Isaac is always on edge, waiting for the attack, waiting for the insult, waiting for glass to shatter.

"They didn't _have_ to."

Unsurprisingly, Boyd understands it best. "It's like siblings. Kind of. Just nobody knows it."

Erika teases Boyd with a gentle shove to his shoulder. He humors her and slides off the cushions, half-dragging Isaac with him. Derek feels his mouth soften, though he doesn't smile.

"How is Derek's crazy-weird protectorate thing anything like siblings?"

"You don't have to like each other," Boyd says, very softly. "But you never, ever want anything bad to happen to them."

How in the hell did he manage to bite the three most emotionally scarred teens in Beacon Hills, and why did he think any of this was a good idea? He thought Boyd was _stable_ , and now he's just displayed the same kind of horrifying deep emotional scars that Derek himself has. Then again, no wonder they understand each other so well, and even if Boyd isn't actually stable, at least he's steady.

"Oh, like me and Isaac?" Erica flashes Isaac a grin, lips brilliant red around white teeth. She lets her fangs drop for a moment, and Isaac shoves at her.

They really are a little like puppies. Gnawing on each other as some sort of play. He'd almost think Erica was pigtail-pulling, but Erica smells more of joy, maybe affection, than lust.

"Enough." He lets a hint of command snap into his voice. They all jerk to attention, looking to him, and that sates his new instincts in a way he isn't sure he likes. "Bring Jackson here tomorrow."

Erica gives him a brilliant, brilliant smile. Boyd nods. Isaac nods, but ducks his head, like he's afraid. So Derek reaches forward, slowly, and clasps a hand on the teen's shoulder.

* * *

Once Erica and Boyd have gone, Derek claps Isaac on the shoulder again. Positive touch seems to be one of the keys to Isaac. "I'm going out. Will you be alright here?"

"I'll be fine," Isaac says, but he sounds like he's only saying it because he's afraid of what will happen if he's not fine.

Abuse survivors. Do they have to be so complicated? He kind of regrets getting himself tangled up in Isaac's clearly shaky emotional health, but not even his own wolf-driven ethics would let him leave a child powerless in the household he's from.

He takes the Camaro to the Stilinski neighborhood, but parks at the end of the cul-de-sac and makes his way to the front door on foot. The Sheriff is home, and he'd far rather avoid the complication, but it'd be hypocritical to ask what his uncle did while sneaking into her house through the window. And if he can pull her toward him, even a little, that could help him draw in McCall.

That's why he's doing this. He's not…attached. He doesn't trust her, doesn't think her stupid courage and impulsiveness are admirable. He needs her for her brain, needs for her mace, needs her for McCall.

He knocks on the door. The Sherriff answers, then narrows his eyes. "Mr. Hale."

"Sheriff," he says, and has no real idea what to say next. "Is —" Can he use her given name? Better not to risk it; he doesn't want to explain healing a gunshot wound. "Is Miss Stilinski in?"

The Sheriff's gaze flicks to the Jeep parked on the drive.

"May I ask why you want to see her?"

"Complicated teenaged drama I wish I hadn't been dragged into," he says, and while he wishes he wasn't in a mire of hormones and emotions, that's not why he's here. "I owed Scott McCall a favor."

The Sheriff appraises him, then steps aside. "She's in her room. It's the one with the Shakira playing. Knock first; she's doing complicated teenaged things to her hips."

What?

"Of course," he says. "Uh, thanks."

So he goes up the stairs, entirely too aware of the Sheriff's canny eye on him. None of the rooms have Shakira playing, but one has some sort of rhythm that sounds vaguely tribal. The words _it feels better biting down_ slither out from under the door.

So he knocks.

"Come on in," Stiles calls without pausing the music.

He opens the door.

Stiles is wearing a sports bra, one of those weird sleeve things the ballet dancers wore in _Black Swan_ , and clingy yoga pants. She's pulled her hair into a messy ponytail, and there's a sheen of sweat at her hairline and on the neckline of her bra. Not necessarily dressed for public consumption, but she's pretty clearly doing some sort of workout, if the full-length mirror and the YouTube video are any indication.

"Little slow for Jazzercise," he says. Do people even _do_ Jazzercise anymore?

"That's because it's going to be gothic belly dance, idiot." She scowls at him, then adds, a little quieter, "No deep breaths, creeperwolf."

"Wouldn't dream of it." She doesn't need to know he's already inhaled both the scent of her sweat and the changed smell of her skin. Or how much he likes them. He's really going to have to talk some sense into his nose at some point. "McCall says you've quit lacrosse."

"I did. I'm taking dancing lessons with Mrs. S again, and I joined the troupe." She tilts her head, considering him, then grabs a tee shirt off the chair by her desk and pulls it on. She takes the spot on the chair vacated by the shirt and says, "Alright, I'm impressed. You braved my father and came in through the door. Why are you really here?"

"Peter." He says simply. "Your throat is not for grown men to bury their noses in — what did he do?"

There is no mistaking the sudden tattoo of her heart, no way it's related to a woman's voice sing-chanting about biting down, no way it's about anything but a memory. Her expression turns distant; fear cuts through the smell of sweat and exercise endorphins, turns it all sharp and sour.

"Stiles," he says again, a little more gently. "What did my uncle do?"

"I don't want to talk about it. It's over. I set him on fire. He's dead."

Derek doesn't say anything. Stiles hates silence; she'll fill it on her own.

And she does. "He kidnapped me. When you were missing and had Scott's phone. Made me track down Scott, and it turns out Scott's username and password were both 'Allison,' and he was just." She shakes her head, a little rueful. "He got in close behind me; I mean seriously creepily pressed up against me, and, like, stuffed his nose right up against my neck —"

Her fingers flutter gracefully to the junction of neck and shoulder. Her pulse throbs in her throat, pounds in his ears.

"And breathed in." She inhales deeply, eyes fluttering closed. "He told me he liked me. That he wanted to _give_ me something. All with me pinned by my hips to his Renfield nurse's car. He offered me the bite. I said no. He... he called me a liar."

There's more. There's more to the story; he can hear it in the way her heartbeat hasn't slowed, in the way her eyes haven't opened. And then her hand flutters down to her side, below her ribcage. Right where the jaws of the alpha form would easiest reach.

"He didn't bite you," he says, and some part of him wonders if maybe Peter had, if maybe there's something completely wrong in Beacon Hills, causing newly turned werewolves not to manifest. But she smells of heated sugar and sex and fertility and sweat and fear, but not of wolf or of wild.

Stiles's eyes snap open. "No."

Footsteps alert him to the Sheriff making his way up the stairs. The older man knocks on the doorframe before stepping in. "Let's get dinner started, kiddo. Mr. Hale, I assume you're staying?" The last is worded and spoken as a question, but that canny glint is back in the Sheriff's eyes.

Derek says, "Don't want to overstay my welcome."

"Nonsense." What he really means is: _You did that when you walked in the door._ "Please. Stiles and I are cooking lasagna tonight."

"Dad, the lasagna was last week and you hated it."

"Well, this week we're having real lasagna, not that whole-wheat low fat thing —"

"No, this week we're having smoky bean and spinach burgers."

"I'm not breaking out the smoker," the Sheriff says.

"You don't have to. I have liquid smoke," Stiles says, like that makes any sense. "You can put together the jicama salad. And Derek..."

"I'm not just watching you cook," he says. 

He really means that he wants the hell out of here, but the Sheriff seems to hear something else. "No, you won't be watching us cook. You'll be helping us drink beer. Helping _me_ drink beer, since my daughter can't drink yet." The Sheriff's eyes narrow for a moment.

Derek has begun to think there's no escape from this that doesn't explain healing gunshot wounds.

"Not beer, Daddy, wine," Stiles says, absently. "It's better for your heart."

Not ten minutes later, he finds himself penned in the Stilinski kitchen, drinking red wine while Stiles shoves kidney beans, brown rice, garlic, soy sauce, a bottle of what Stiles calls liquid smoke (what?) and a handful of spices into a food processor that already has spinach and onions ground up in it.

"Red wine is good for heart health," the Sheriff tells him. "My daughter insists that I drink a glass every night. I drew the line at Merlot."

"I can see why you stick to Lagrein," Derek offers, because he really doesn't want to get shot.

Stiles looks up from where she has begun rolling a juicy mass of shredded beans and spinach and god knows what around in, of all things, bread crumbs. She glares at her father. "Dad, you haven't already had burgers today, have you?"

"You can't call those burgers. They don't even have meat," the Sheriff grumps. 

"Derek," Stiles says, sweetly. "Does Dad seem like he's had greasy burgers today?" She twitches her nose.

What. In the fuck. Has his life become. Stiles is asking him to give her father a fucking _sniff test_ for junk food, and he's going to do it because she smells good and he's guilty about his own uncle practically molesting her when he offered her the bite. And it's his fault his uncle was even crazy enough to molest a sixteen year old girl. A sixteen year old girl his nose and dick are practically writing sonnets about.

He is officially the worst person in the world. He also officially hates his life.

But he turns toward the Sheriff. Tilts his head a little, subtly breathes in the scent of the man. There is definitely the scent of some sort of meat grease on him. Also salt. Somebody's had burgers and fries. Derek would bet on it.

" _If_ he's had a burger today, cut him a break for the meat-free dinner," Derek says.

"Okay. Then we can have the low-sugar chocolate sauce on the grape sorbet for dessert."

"Not with the grapes again," the Sheriff sighs, while Stiles points at them with breadcrumbed fingers and says, severely, " _Grapes lower cholesterol._ "

The Sheriff rolls his gaze toward Derek, in a _see what I suffer through_ sort of way, and then says, "Has she taken over your life this thoroughly, Derek?"

"We don't actually know each other well enough," he says. Keep the lie simple. "I mostly know her through Scott."

Eventually, Stiles serves up baked patties on whole wheat buns, piled high with avocado and tomatoes. They're actually pretty good. He's kind of amazed. Thanks to his sense of smell, his palate is too refined to be really fooled, but the Sheriff clearly enjoys them, and it's not a bad combination of tastes.

"So when did you learn to cook?"

"Mom and I cooked together a lot," Stiles says, pushing a bit of Jicama salad around on her plate.

After a few awkward moments, the Sheriff asks, "So how did the two of you go from murder accusations to stepping into teenaged drama because you owe Scott McCall?"

Derek is extremely lucky that Isaac calls him. He looks up, pretends guilt rather than relief, and says, "I'm sorry, but I have to take this, and I might have to leave."

* * *

He doesn't answer the call until he's on the Stilinski's front step. "Isaac? What happened?"

"Nothing," Isaac says, a little sulky. "I just wanted to know what's taking you so long. And Scott's come back, trying to shout at you. I told him you're not even here. Think he wants me to take a message?"

"You are _not_ ," Derek says, very calmly, "McCall's message boy. Whatever he wants to shout at me about can wait until I'm back."

"And when will that be? Because he's been going for like five straight minutes."

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. "Alright, on my way."

He sprints for the Camaro, just barely not using the increased speed, and pulls the hell out of the neighborhood.

* * *

He can hear shouting even before he's made it to the train depot. He's out of the car in a flash, keys safely in his pocket so he can clench his fists.

"Scott," he snaps.

Scott turns around. "Derek!"

"No. We are not doing this again. You do not _shout_ at my betas, you do not shout at my home, and you especially do not ever, ever raise your voice to Isaac again. And you're not going to shout at me, unless you want me to grab you by the face and slam your head into a train car until you learn how to speak to an alpha."

Scott just stares at him. "You smell like Stiles."

"I needed to discuss some details about Peter with her. Do you have anything new to tell me about the kanima or the Argents?" Scott shakes his head. "Then unless you're here to join my pack, get the hell out."

"It's about Lydia."

"Unless Lydia is the kanima," Derek growls, "she's not my problem. If you're not here about the kanima or the Argents, and you're not here to join my pack, get out."

Once Scott is on his bike and out of earshot, Derek runs his hand through his hair. "Alright. Get in the car."

"What?" Isaac stares at him, then at the Camaro.

"We're going to dinner," he says. "Stiles made fake burgers. They're good."

"You…were having dinner with the Stilinskis?" Isaac just sounds curious, not judgmental. "Did you leave in the middle to come get me?"

Derek almost says _Of course I did_. But he doesn't say anything, only dips his head in a nod.

"...we should go back," Isaac says. "And we should take them dessert."

They unanimously decide that although Stiles is the one Derek needs to ally with, neither of them wants to explain bullet wounds disappearing, and they've both been suspected of murder. Derek picks up an apple pie from a bakery and prays neither of the Stilinskis is allergic to apples. Or cinnamon. They grab vanilla frozen yogurt, though, to at least partially appease Stiles's apparent health nut tendencies.

The Sheriff answers the door with a flat, unamused expression. His gaze flicks over to Isaac — who is holding the pie, because Isaac is the most recent murder suspect, and also has wide, trembling eyes that are impossible to resist for long — and he adds, "Ah, so you had to run and pick up the littlest murder suspect."

"He was being shouted at," Derek says.

Isaac offers the pie. The Sheriff's expression softens, and Derek realizes that yes, the Sheriff would be aware of Isaac's background. That awareness is why he was a murder suspect in the first place.

The Sheriff steps aside and motions them in.

"Stiles," he calls into the dining room. "Are you making friends with murder suspects because I didn't buy you a Porsche?"

"Jackson drives a Porsche, and besides, why would I want a plastic car? It's because you didn't buy me a Jaguar, duh."

"Take the pie on in," the Sheriff says, a little smugly.

So they carry the pie into the dining room. Stiles gives the yogurt inexplicable judgy eyes, but doesn't say anything. Instead, she rolls her eyes and fixes Isaac a plate of fake burger.

"You want avocado? Tomato? We've got good mustard and some homemade mayonnaise, and of course onions and lettuce."

"I wasn't offered any mayonnaise!" The Sheriff says. "I didn't even know we had any!"

"A-avocado and tomato are fine," Isaac says, voice quiet and eyes down. "Thank you."

"I'll go get that mustard and some lettuce," the Sheriff says. "And Stiles made me this damn spinach and cucumber shake. It's got bananas and oranges, too. You want to help me drink that down?"

They all end up with a small glass of the horrible spinach shake. Isaac, however, ends up with a huge glass of milk and two slices of pie. And then he gets saddled with the leftovers, what few there are.

"Go on, take those out to Derek's flashy Camaro, son. I just need to borrow Derek a minute," the Sheriff tells Isaac. Then he pulls Derek into the back of the house, near the kitchen. It's not actually out of Isaac's hearing range, but he says nothing on the matter.

"I assume you're looking after the boy?"

"I try to," he says. It's more honest than he's been about his attempts at being an alpha with anyone else.

"Not exactly a legal arrangement."

"...no."

"I can see why you'd want to help him. You've been to some of the same places he has. Lost people," and though both of them clearly think back to it, neither of them mentions that he was on duty the day of the Hale fire. "Been suspected of killing people you lost. But he needs an actual legal guardian. Stop by my office, I'll get some paperwork. He's old enough, it should be pretty easy, especially with the Sheriff on your side."

"Is the Sheriff on my side?"

Sheriff Stilinski contemplates this. His eyes are too intelligent. Stiles didn't inherit their color, but they have the same light of intellect, of craft, of the ability to pull puzzles apart and put them back together. 

After a long, long moment, he says, "It's a good thing you're trying to do, here. As long as you're careful with my daughter and good with Isaac, I'm in your corner."

Derek nods. "I… thank you." The words are sticky in his mouth, difficult to say.

But the Sheriff only nods. So Derek thanks him for dinner, then turns to go.

"So when, exactly, did you forgive my daughter for accusing you of murder, and start owing Scott McCall favors?"

"When I finally found out who set the fire," he says. Not a word of it is true, but it's the only believable answer he can give.

* * *

They bring him Whittemore the next night. Boyd and Isaac have him by each arm. Isaac's eyes are fever-bright. Derek receives the impression that Whittemore has made Isaac miserable somehow, from the way his mouth curls as he twists his fingers into Whittemore's skin.

They force Whittemore to his knees. Derek stands, slowly makes his way to the first teen he bit. Some part of him screams against the very idea of poisoning someone who should, by all rights, be in his pack. But if Whittemore is a threat to Beacon Hills —

He watches Whittemore slide bonelessly to the ground.

Not Whittemore. The redhead his uncle bit. The redhead Stiles is so fond of.

He'd just pulled Stiles into his orbit, just begun laying groundwork. She almost _likes_ him now, she'll be useful. And some part of him wants that to keep going, whether or not she's a good tool or will bring McCall with her. He enjoys her goodwill. He _owes_ her, thanks to Peter.

And now he's going to have to lose it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to join me over on [tumblr](http://yesthatnagia.tumblr.com).


	5. Chapter 5

Jackson Whittemore is not the kanima. At least, according to the evidence they have. 

When Jackson has finally recovered, his betas all look to him. Expecting instructions, authority. Answers he doesn't have. And he can't even give them anything, because some sick part of him has been filled with _hope_. That maybe whatever's wrong with Whittemore can be fixed, that maybe he didn't make such a huge mistake after all.

"If it's not Jackson, then it's..." Isaac frowns, staring at them all.

"Lydia," Erica says, her red mouth curling into a nasty smile around the words. There's a history there, he thinks. He remembers her startled eyes in the morgue, the way her pulse sped up at his touch, and wonders if that history is jealousy. Then he remembers the way her eyes track Stiles, the way she breathes in, the way her pupils dilate, and wonders if it's a darker kind of jealousy.

Derek holds up a hand. "I'm going to drag Whittemore back to his car. When I come back, I'll have a plan to test Lydia."

* * *

He takes the Camaro. Jackson is sullen and wary for the entire trip. He startles every time Derek looks his way.

"You think I'm some sort of monster?" Jackson asks, about five minutes away from the school. With the betas out of the picture, he's a lot more vulnerable. Less good at hiding the the scared, insecure boy behind that armor of casual douchebaggery, self-aggrandizement and irritating self-absorption.

And some part of Derek wants to reassure him. The rest of him just wants to discipline Jackson for his behavior in the depot, for speaking so out of turn to his alpha. Never mind that Jackson hasn't even changed, doesn't have the instincts he'd need. 

"You proved you're not."

"But Lydia is," Jackson says, and there's no mistaking the bitter twist of his voice.

What exactly did Stiles's pet redhead do to Whittemore?

"That's not your concern. Leave wolf problems to the wolves," he says.

Jackson recoils as if stung. When Derek stops the Camaro, he practically rolls out of his seat and onto the ground, then dashes toward his Porsche.

Derek drives to the Stilinski house. The drive is bare save for the Jeep and he hears only one heartbeat, but he parks at the end of the cul-de-sac regardless. He rings the doorbell.

Stiles answers the door in different yoga pants — red — and a tee shirt. Her hair looks almost sex-tousled, but she smells of sweat, creamsicle body wash, and unfamiliar places. He can smell her skin beneath all that. And despite the lack of the fertility smell, he still wants to press his face against her throat and breathe in the scent of her. Wants to let his nose and mouth travel along her shoulder, then down further.

He pushes the thoughts from his mind.

"Jackson isn't the kanima," he says.

Stiles's eyes widen. She stares at him as if he's done something completely impossible, or shown up and explained to her in perfect Polish that his hovercraft is full of eels.

"You used the doorbell."

"We shouldn't discuss this in the open."

"I didn't think you knew _how_ to use the doorbell. I figured you only knew how to climb in windows and punch doors until somebody heard you and opened them." She narrows her eyes. "Did you punch the buzzer? Is there damage? If there's damage to our doorbell, _you're_ fixing it."

"Stiles," he snaps. "Jackson Whittemore is not the kanima. We need — I need — to discuss the options."

Her mouth forms a perfect _o_. Her lips are plump, red from being reflexively chewed on; he drags his attention back to her eyes. And she steps back, swings the door open wide enough for him to follow.

"My room," she says, and he follows her up the stairs. He has to shift his gaze to the portraits and away from her as she climbs the steps. She doesn't bother closing her bedroom door. He'd wonder about that, but since there's no one else in the house, he lets it go.

"Okay," she says, sprawling back on her bed. "How do you know Jackson isn't the kanima?"

"Its venom paralyzed him," he says.

"Uh-huh." She makes a skeptical noise. "Okay, lack of immunity to venom... I can see where you're getting the all clear. The thing is, that test might or might not work on Lydia. She had an atypical reaction to an alpha's bite."

"We don't even really need to test her. Jackson isn't the —'

"Okay, and even if he's not? Peter offered _me_ the bite. Me. It's totally possible that Peter bit someone else we don't know about, and that person is the kanima." Stiles shrugs. "I'm not convinced Lydia is a threat. She seems more like one of Peter's victims to me."

He remembers the slide of her pale fingers to her ribcage, the rabbiting beat of her heart, and wants to ask. But he knows that Stiles would never consider herself a victim. No matter what Peter did when he offered her the bite.

"Find me another option."

Stiles glares. "Really? You're going to put this on me?"

"You're the one who doesn't want to test her."

Stiles chews on her lower lip for a moment, eyes furious, before she finally tips her head to one side, acknowledging the point. She's silent as she thinks, but not motionless. Instead she fidgets, and then eventually brings her hands together, flicking her fingers to create a loud snap.

"We could… explain everything to Lydia. I know she wants to know what's going on. She deserves to know; it's got her wandering naked in the woods. We could explain everything, and — I cannot believe I'm saying this — and kind of keep her for a while? If she hulks out, and we can't help her, we'll have her right where we need her. And if she doesn't hulk out, we'll —"

"— We'll know for sure." Derek nods. 

Right now it's a flimsy plan almost guaranteed to get someone killed. But he knows between himself and Stiles, they'll flesh it out.

"We'll take her at school tomorrow. I can have Erica and Isaac —"

"No," Stiles snaps.

"No?"

"No! No, you are not having Isaac and Erica drag her around. We want to keep the blatantly illegal crap to a minimum!" Stiles sighs, does the weird, closed-handed snap again, and says, "Okay. After class, I'll get her to follow me to your train depot. You can take her phone and keys, and we'll explain the situation and keep her."

"I'll have Erica drive her car back to her house."

"Have Erica take the phone, too. Drop it off in her room. Lydia has a history of vanishing, now, which gives us the perfect story." Stiles pauses. "Assuming she doesn't flip out and press charges."

Derek raises an eyebrow.

Stiles understands immediately what he's asking. "It all implies that she drove herself home and then went nuts again. And, even better, since she was wandering around the woods, that's where the police will search. Not abandoned buildings."

Derek allows the very corner of his mouth to curl up. "I'll let my betas know. You'll have their full cooperation."

"Yippee," Stiles says, unenthusiastic.

* * *

Boyd isn't particularly fond of Stiles's plan, but Erica and Isaac are all over it. There's a nasty glint in Erica's eye at the thought of making sure that Lydia Martin can't leave the depot.

So Derek leaves them to it. He drops Erica and Isaac off at school, then drives to the police station. He parks a block or so away, in a paid lot. He doesn't trust the Sheriff and his deputies not to be as twitchy about haphazard parking jobs as Stiles is about turn signals. She has to have gotten her immense respect for the rules of the road from somewhere.

He pauses to steel himself before he enters the station. It smells mostly of stale coffee and tired humans, though he detects a gun oil scent. He can hear no fewer than three different conversations about the same illegal bonfire in the Preserve. Apparently, cops gossip.

The woman on duty smiles at him. From the way her eyes linger, he makes a conscious effort not to inhale through his nose.

"Derek Hale. I'm here to see the Sheriff."

The woman nods. She places a quick call, then waves him back through.

He knocks at the Sheriff's office door, despite being invited. It seems best to be as polite, as timid and human, as he can. It doesn't help that the Sheriff could make his life inconvenient in numerous, numerous ways even without shooting him.

"C'mon in, son," the Sheriff says. "This about the Lahey boy?"

"Yes." Derek steps inside the office, closes the door, but doesn't approach the desk. Perhaps it's the air of authority — even if it's only human authority — or perhaps it's simple caution, but he feels reluctant to trespass too far into the Sheriff's territory without direct invitation.

"The chair won't bite you, Hale. Now, I've got a mountain of paperwork to get through. Let's see if I can get yours out of the way."

Derek moves forward, takes a seat in front of the Sheriff's desk.

"I'm just going to guess that Lahey is already living with you, and not his official placement? He's gone through two."

"Yes," he says. After a moment, because he has his own suspicions, he asks, "Have they reported his absence?"

"No." The Sheriff's mouth curls downward, brows furrowing in displeasure. "According to my CPS contacts, they haven't. Now, it's pretty clear to me he's been going to school regularly since relocating himself. Thing is, we're going to need a stable address from you. Signs of gainful employment wouldn't hurt. I understand you may be," the Sheriff pauses before saying, "independently wealthy, but having a job would make you seem better able to be responsible for a sixteen year old."

"I can give you a permanent address." But until the pack is more stable and the kanima matter is settled, he won't be job hunting. He hadn't wanted the loft leaving a legal paper trail beyond his ownership, which had been fairly easy to bury. But he's willing to sacrifice the loft's secrecy if he has to. "Do I need to pass some sort of foster care inspection?"

"Isaac is a sixteen year old with a clear history of vanishing from placements he didn't like. CPS is stretched thin, even here. Permanent place of residence will do. Landline's preferable to cell phone, but the world being what is, all the caseworker really needs is proof you've got hot water and electricity.'

Derek nods. "I can do that."

The Sheriff passes over the paperwork. Derek reads it carefully, then fills it out and signs it.

"That's on your end. Now, this is Isaac's. Just have him sign it and bring it back into me. I'll give this to CPS. The caseworker will push it through."

Derek gives the Sheriff a wary nod, uncertain why a social worker would simply make him — an exonerated murder suspect — the legal guardian of a troubled sixteen year old. 

When he asks, the Sheriff chuckles without humor. "Well, for one, it's me asking, and I don't ask favors often. For another, she's got a lot on her plate, and she'll be better able to help her other cases if she can say this one is handled."

"Triage," Derek says.

The Sheriff nods. "Triage. Now, I've got incident reports to read — and a few to hand back for corrections. Go find the Littlest Murder Suspect, if he's not in school."

He takes the paperwork and goes. Isaac will be coming to him after school, might as well have him sign it then and return it to the station. That Isaac will sign it, he doesn't doubt.

* * *

He returns to the train depot to wait. He can't help running through his decisions, trying to see what he should do next. He was never cut out for this, never taught to lead. Never expected to be anything but Laura's right hand. Not for the first time, he wonders how Laura would be handling this situation.

Well, for one, she'd have him at her side. McCall would probably have liked her; everyone always liked Laura. So she would never have needed to bite Whittemore. And Peter wouldn't have bitten Lydia Martin.

Maybe they would have gone back to New York, if Peter hadn't killed her.

Derek sighs and tries to throw the thoughts out of his mind. He drowns them in exercise instead. Pull-ups, one-handed push-ups, crunches.

He's mid-crunch when he hears Stiles's Jeep approach. There's another car behind it, quieter. Newer, though perhaps not by much.

The Jeep's doors open and close, and then the other cars. Four people approach.

Stiles and Lydia enter first. Isaac blocks the only visible exit, while Erica stands near him with her head tilted. She smiles in Derek's direction, but then refocuses her gaze on Lydia and Stiles.

Lydia stalks forward. She's in heels that click-click-click on the concrete floor, and smells of salt (tears, maybe?) and some floral perfume. He can't get a read on her natural scent from this distance. She's short, but she holds her head high, and what light enters the depot somehow catches the red in her hair. Her expression is both arrogant and highly displeased.

Derek isn't sure if he's impressed, if he dislikes her, or if Stiles's apparent lifelong crush has suddenly become understandable.

Lydia whirls on Stiles. Her polka dotted skirt swishes around her knees. "You said you would explain everything! This is not where people go to explain things, this is where they go to kill people!"

"We've never killed anybody here," Isaac says. His tone straddles the border between smug and offended, and was probably calculated to be exactly as reassuring as it isn't.

"I promise, I'll explain everything. I know this looks kind of more like a kidnapping, but there will be an explanation! We just… need to keep an eye on you, for reasons you'll understand soon. Derek, you want to be Exhibit A, since you're standing in front of us?"

Derek nods once.

Stiles takes a deep breath and says, very calmly, "Okay. Step one: werewolves," and points at Derek.

When Lydia turns to face him, he shifts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick notes about the foster care -- as a general rule, CPS prefers to keep family units intact (and will err on the side of not breaking a kid away from a guardian to whom they're attached and who genuinely cares about them). And while Derek and Isaac are hardly a family unit, Isaac has tacitly expressed his preference for Derek over any placement. At sixteen, that's more likely to carry some weight. Add in the fact that the county Sheriff is pushing for it, and I think a social worker would be willing to push the paperwork through. 
> 
> The thing about the land lines is true though! At least it used to be in Tennessee.


	6. Chapter 6

It takes them three hours not only to get through the whole story, but to get Lydia to even begin to accept it — she spends an hour and a half convinced she's hallucinating, though Isaac and Stiles eventually talk her down from that particular ledge. Derek is starting to wonder if this plan is simply too complicated, too much effort for too little of an uncertain reward.

But it lets him keep Stiles on his side, and giving Lydia information is more likely to sway her to his side. If he and McCall ever draw the battle lines down Beacon Hills, he'd like to have both Stiles and Lydia firmly behind him.

It takes them a day to get Lydia to agree to the cover story, but once she does, she's fully committed. And her commitment is fierce, almost raging.

"No," she says when Stiles brings up the possibility of a third party being the kamina. "Peter said I was his only choice. He might have offered it to Stiles, but he hasn't bitten anyone else."

"So it's you or Jackson?" Stiles leans forward, eyes intent.

"It's Jackson. I didn't kill anybody during my fugue, just…" She trails off, evidently unwilling to say, _wandered around the woods naked and got twigs in my hair._

Stiles nods, but she flicks her eyes toward Derek. Her face is impassive — eyes and fragile-looking jaw relaxed, plump mouth a straight line — but he can tell from the tension in her shoulders that she isn't sure she believes Lydia yet.

Stiles's phone rings. She turns away from Lydia, swipes her thumb across the screen. "Scotty?" 

"Stiles," McCall's voice, tinny and small, says, surprisingly loud in the room after Stiles swipes her thumb across what must be the speaker button. "Allison and I found the bestiary, but we need someone who can read archaic Latin."

"I'm taking German," Stiles says. "So I'm not going to be any help there."

Lydia raises an eyebrow, then lifts her hand in the air in a lazy motion. She manages to make the gesture seem almost sarcastic, or maybe simply disdainful. 

Stiles looks to her, and Lydia shrugs. "I got bored with classical Latin."

"Of _course_ you did," Stiles says, seeming both exasperated and smug. "Scott, I'm with Lydia. She can read it, but she needs to stay where she is. Right, Derek, Lydia?"

Two voices squawk indignantly from the other end of the line. Derek feels himself wince. He doesn't bother trying to separate out what they're saying.

"I've agreed to stay here and I will," Lydia says, voice prim.

"If it has to be collected, we can send Erica."

Erica flashes him a frown.

"You're the only one I trust to drive my car," Derek says, and watches the frown magically transform into delight. Her love of his car is, quite frankly, a little disturbing in its intensity. In fact, if he had a shred of evidence besides the way she smells when she crawls in, the way she likes to run her fingertips along the wheel, the way she crosses and uncrosses her legs as the motor growls, he'd say she was having an affair with it.

"Can't they email it? Have them email it to me." Lydia says. She waves her hand, curling her fingers in a way that is both possessive and commanding.

If it weren't beneath him to be jealous of a sixteen year old girl, he could really work up a case of dislike for her.

"Did you get that, Scott?"

"Yeah, we got it," Scott says. And then he asks, "So you're with Lydia? Where is she, anyway?"

Lydia looks at Stiles. Stiles looks at him.

Derek looks at both of them, then at his betas, who have begun to smile.

"That's hardly any of your business," Lydia answers for them. "I'm with Derek and Stiles, and I'm safe. And _they_ told me what was going on. Funny how my own best friend didn't think to do that."

More squawking, this time in a female voice. It's platitudes, mostly. Allison thought she was keeping Lydia uninvolved, that things were better that way. Derek knows that Lydia probably doesn't actually feel safe even here, guarded — and watched — by werewolves. How could she, with her own mind betraying her?

Lydia makes a telephone with her right hand, thumb and smallest finger sticking out awkwardly, then turns it so they're facing down in a _hang up_ gesture.

Stiles disconnects the call, then hands her phone over to Lydia.

* * *

The next day, they move to his loft. Scott doesn't know where it is, can't go there or send anyone there to interfere. Isaac seems to like the place. He especially likes having an actual bed, a room, a door he can lock. The train depot was easy on their instincts — it's in their natures to touch, to stay near each other, to want to curl up together to sleep — but hard on their humanity.

Isaac signs the guardianship paperwork. Stiles runs it to the station for him, since he has to stay with Lydia. He can almost relax to have that one thing settled.

Derek spends the day after that restlessly. He'd rather be out hunting, searching down the kanima, but it still could be Lydia, and even if it isn't, he can't be sure where it will go. And running around town with his nose in the air will accomplish even less than keeping an eye on the bestiary work.

Stiles brings in her laptop, lets Lydia translate the bestiary into a single document. They start with the kanima, pass words and ideas back and forth, shoulder to shoulder and voices low.

Derek listens, and then, gradually, joins them. Erica, Isaac, and Boyd hover at the edges of the room, ever wary of Lydia, ever wary of his displeasure. And, eventually, he waves them over.

"Brief them," he tells Stiles.

And she does: the kanima is a not only a shifter, but a twisted wolf. Stiles makes _Girl, Interrupted_ jokes that cause Lydia to roll her eyes, but there's an element of truth to it. The kanima's wolf shift has been halted, perverted into something else by some tragedy or incompleteness in its history or nature. It can't join a pack because it doesn't know who or what it is.

"Here's the important part, though," Stiles says, all jokes gone from her voice. "The kanima doesn't act on its own. It's a tool of vengeance. It has to have a master."

"So what happens if we kill him? The master, I mean?" Isaac asks, voice too blunt and unconcerned for him not to be nervous about the question he's asking. Derek inhales for a moment, scents anxiety and something like frustration, though with less of an angry edge. Determination, maybe.

"The bestiary doesn't say. My guess is it either goes, like, catatonic, or it picks itself someone new."

"Bet on it picking a new master," Boyd says from behind Erica. They all turn to look at him. He uncrosses his arms from over his chest, lets them relax. "We're not lucky enough for it to go catatonic."

Erica gives them a vicious, lopsided grin that speaks to acceptance of their lot, which appears to be all complications, all the time. Isaac rolls his eyes, while Lydia frowns thoughtfully. Stiles, of course, throws back her head and laughs, and Derek looks away from the long white line of her throat.

* * *

Another day later — Derek spends it simultaneously working out and ignoring the way Lydia's eyes linger on him, both wary and interested — and they finally receive a call from Stiles.

Her voice is breathless over the line. "The kanima's making a move. Lydia's off the hook. I — he's headed to Jungle. I can't do this alone and Scotty's being kind of a butt."

"What's he doing?" Derek asks, and for once it takes effort to keep the shifted growl out of his voice. But he's a human, too, not just an angry alpha; even if his control feels thinner, now, he hasn't lost control of his shift since his teens. He's not going to start now, not even for McCall being an ass to a girl he values as an ally of his pack.

A girl he wants _in_ his pack, whatever it takes to get her there.

"He doubts my commitment to sparkle motion," Stiles says, tone dry, as if that makes any sense at all. After a beat, she adds, "He thinks that next I'm going to start wearing black leather and ask you for the Bite, I guess. I don't know."

He shouldn't flirt. He shouldn't. And he shouldn't enjoy the thought of sinking his teeth into her and making her more, making her his; it shouldn't send this sick, wrong, heat pulsing low in his stomach. He closes his mouth before he can say _Make that red leather and I'll consider it_. Instead, he says, "He thinks you're on a different side?"

"Pretty much. And he's pissed that I'm kind of… not gung-ho about the Argents. I mean, Allison's great, but. Her family is fucking nuts, and her asshole grandpa's dinner nearly got me drowned."

He hardly needs the reminder. "Do you need me at Jungle?"

"Yeah, kinda? I mean for one, I can't get in."

Derek tries not to imagine Stiles finding a way to adapt her gothic bellydance to dubstep on Jungle's too-crowded dance floor. He sighs. "Alright. I'll pick you up." He hangs up on her, then says, "Lydia, you're free to go. Erica, Boyd, get to Jungle. Keep an eye out."

"And how are we getting there? That Camaro seems a little small for you, us, Stiles, and your big, werewolf nose-crush on her," Erica says. She inspects her nails, while Lydia looks over, vaguely interested.

He lets his eyes bleed red. "Run."

Much though he'd like to, he can't afford to dignify the comment about his nose with any greater response. If Erica thinks she's getting to him, she'll keep trying to use it. So he'll have to exert dominance the way his mother did, sometimes: loftily ignore any attempt at disobedience and try to turn everything to his advantage. 

"How am _I_ supposed to leave?" Lydia apparently knows what's good for her and refrains from following up on Erica's jibe.

"There's a pay phone at the gas station a mile south." He allows himself a smile. "Do you need change?"

Lydia stares at him, like the concept of voluntarily walking a mile is utterly foreign. How do humans survive to adulthood?

"How about I just wait until you're back and you give me a lift home?"

"You just spent three days in a so-called fugue state with access to a shower. You need a layer of sweat and dust."

"Fine," she says, rolling her eyes. "But I'm walking up to the counter and demanding water."

"Sounds dramatic," he says, then grabs his jacket and his keys. "Erica. Boyd. Go."

Erica and Boyd leave the loft, leaping down the stairs. How Erica manages that in heels, Derek doesn't want to know. At least her wolf will heal any sprained or broken ankles. He follows close on their heels, makes his way to the Camaro, and tries not to think about whether or not Stiles has noticed what she does to him.

* * *

Stiles spends the entire drive coordinating with Erica and Boyd via text message and on the phone, making arrangements with McCall. Derek listens in, and is, if not pleased, less disgruntled now that the omega is willing to work with her, even if he seems reluctant. The boy seems to have taken Stiles's willingness to work with him personally.

Derek tells himself it's none of his concern. He keeps his hands on the steering wheel, takes measured breaths, and drives.

They're more than a block away from Jungle when he starts to hear the music. He hates the thought of being trapped in a too-small space with too many people, too much noise. It's no place to fight the kanima; they'll have to identify its target, draw that single person out of the way, and hope for the best.

Stiles is practically vibrating on the seat next to him. He considers the fact that she's sixteen, that most of the dance clubs in town are 21+. Then he wonders at her excitement at being near a gay club in the specific context of the things she says she wants to do to Lydia Martin.

"Stilinski," he says, voice flat. "I need you to stay focused."

"Pretty meaningless word for a girl like me, Sourwolf."

"Just — don't get swept away by some pretty woman. Keep your eyes on the shadows and the —"

"— the rafters, right, since Team McCall will keep an eye on the crowd. Hey, I could be swept up by a pretty dude, too, you know. Bi people go to Jungle. We're under the queer umbrella."

He quirks an eyebrow. "We?"

"By which I meant me and other bi people. I'm not about to speak for _your_ orientation, jeez."

"So do I have to scare all the pretty people away from you, or can I just threaten to rip your throat out if you lose me the kanima?"

She gives him an odd look at that, evidently questioning why pretty people would be near her. "How about we just stick close together? No scaring or threats necessary."

He parks in one of the overflow lots. The minute she's untangled herself from her seat belt and is out of the car, he drags her away from the line of people waiting to hand over their IDs and pay cover. Instead, he takes her around the back, toward a service entrance, and is surprised to find the doorknob torn off.

"Scotty," Stiles sighs.

Derek doesn't say that it's pretty much exactly what he would have done. Stiles can despair of unsubtle werewolves all she likes, so long as she's not despairing of him in particular. 

Instead, he leads her inside. Paying less attention to his nose and hearing while acclimating his vision to the dark, beyond human sensitivity, is a nasty balancing act. He immediately shifts his gaze to the shadows around the room, but sees only people pressed against each other. The club's light's flash and dim, strobing and swirling, and cast the dance floor into some sort of kaleidoscopic chiaroscuro.

And then he realizes he's lost track of Stiles. He took his eyes off her for, what, twenty seconds? Maybe a full minute?

He keeps an eye on the rafters as he searches for her. Eventually he finds her in the arms of a woman with short blonde hair; the stranger is pressed against Stiles's back, and their hips roll to the music.

Derek places a hand on Stiles's shoulder. He has to shout to be heard, but he tries to keep his voice at least not overtly threatening. "Mind if I cut in?"

The blonde looks at him, arching a brow. Derek grins. Holds the smile just a beat too long, and flashes her his fangs.

The blonde lets go of Stiles and pushes her way through the crowd, presumably to find herself another underaged bisexual.

"Really? The teeth?" Stiles shouts.

Derek slides his arms so he can grip her waist in his hands, pulls her in close. But he keeps them face-to-face. No point both of them sticking together if they're only going to look in the same direction.

He almost can't hear her over the stupid dubsteb, but Stiles's heartbeat speeds up, even as she hooks her thumbs in his belt loops and begins to sway her hips.

He returns his focus to the rafters. No sign of it, yet, and the blaring-dying light means he's constantly adjusting his vision, straining his eyes for it.

The song changes, and with it, the way Stiles moves her hips. It goes from something on-rhythm but gentle to a rolling motion that brings them closer together. He tries to ignore it, tries to grind on-beat without paying Stiles any attention. But she's too close to dismiss, her hands warm at his waistband; she smells too sweetly of sweat and warm sugar and a low, faintly salty thrum of arousal. Her heart thuds in his ears, nowhere near as loud but much closer, more intimate than the music.

When he risks a look back down, her eyes are up, focusing on something above his head. He pulls her flush against him, dips his head forward. Her eyes widen for a moment before she nods and turns her head for a better angle, stretching onto her toes — willing to meet him halfway.

He presses his mouth to her ear. "Did you see it?"

"Hard to tell! The lights make everything weird!" But then she looks back up. She yanks her hands away from his waist, reaches up to grip his shoulder, hard. She bumps her hip against a nearby dancer, already trying to sidle them around. Derek helps, elbowing somebody out of the way so he can take her former place.

The kanima is in the rafters. Of course it is; it could hardly walk on the ground without notice. Even here.

Derek drops his hands from her waist, pushes her back. "Run. Get to the alley."

"I can help!"

"Are you armed?"

She pulls something from the pocket of her jeans: a small canister that smells like pepper and angry chemicals, even on the sweat-stinking dance floor.

"I can ruin its week!"

"Or get scratched and paralyzed," he hisses. "Get to the alley."

Stiles glares for a moment, but her gaze darts up to the kanima, and then she tosses the little metal can to him. He catches it by reflex, then turns back to face the kanima.

It sees him. It hisses, then begins to crawl down a support beam. He's reminded less of a snake and more of a lizard, maybe a gecko with the way it moves.

Derek twists the canister, aims. But the damned thing isn't facing him; instead, it makes its way through the crowd, making its precise, surgical cuts. How does someone being _Werewolf, Interrupted_ turn into this? Wolves are predators, and they're efficient, but he would never describe a wolf's actions as surgical.

People begin to fall. The screaming starts. So does the human herd instinct, the crowd hurrying to flee.

Derek lets his eyes flash red, then roars with all the anger and command of an alpha who's been unwisely disobeyed. He doesn't really expect the creature to submit, but he does get its attention.

The kanima is ten feet away. Derek aims the mace, pushes the button, watches a thin stream of liquid he really wishes he wasn't smelling right now jet toward the thing's lizard-eyes.

Police sirens wail. The kanima seems to sob and choke all at once, collapsing to the floor and curling into a small ball. It rolls in agony, hissing and whining through a throat that must be closing.

And, gradually, the scales vanish, revealing Jackson's face, tear-streaked and pale. Derek considers ending it here. Fixing his mistake; a wolf can recover from a crushed trachea, but he could rip the boy's throat out now, and the boy would be helpless to stop him.

The sirens are too close. With his luck, he'll leave the building covered in blood just as the deputies arrive. Derek hates it, but he turns on his heel and races toward the back exit. He has no idea where McCall and Allison are; so far as he's concerned, they're on their own.

Stiles is waiting for him in the back alley. Derek grabs her by the upper arm and pulls her along, racing through backstreets toward the overflow lot.

He doesn't give Stiles her mace back until they're in the Camaro and headed for her Jeep.

"Don't use that as a joke," he says. "It's so painful it caused Jackson to de-transform."

"Score one for women's weapons," Stiles says. "Actually, score one for using weapons at all. Can't win every fight with your gorgeous muscles and scary claws."

"Stiles. _Never_ use that on any member of our pack, even if you think it's all in fun."

"Duh," she replies. "It's DefTech Mach Four. Police issue only. It's like two kinds of illegal for me to even have it — actually, it's illegal for you to have it, too — wait, did you say our?"

He did. He did say 'our,' meaning his and hers. And now he's going to have to explain why.

"You don't want the bite," he says. "I respect that. But I want you in my pack. I already think of you as pack."

"You told Scott you were brothers," she says, quietly. Almost timid, if Stiles were capable of being timid. "If you think of me as pack, am I like your little sister?"

"No," he says. "It's not a one-to-one ratio. Roles in the pack don't always match up with..."

"With plain jane families, duly noted. So what would it take, for a human to join a wolf pack? There's not, like, biting or blood or whatever involved, right? Do I have to bring you a dead rabbit?"

Where the hell does she get this stuff? He's halfway tempted to check her laptop for weird Twilight porn or something. Maybe she reads Kitty Norville novels.

"Bonding with the betas," he says. "A show of submission to the alpha. Acknowledgement on both sides."

"You might not have noticed, on account of being kind of dumb, but I'm no good at submitting."

"But you've been so meek," he replies.

The look she shoots him is priceless.

* * *

It's not until later, when Erica and Boyd have returned to their homes and he's alone in the loft save Isaac, that he realizes. She actually acknowledged finding him attractive, rather than desperately looking anywhere else and trying to pretend she didn't. She'd done it verbally, casually, and then been anxious when she asked if he saw her as a little sister.

He really has a gift for getting himself into trouble.


	7. Chapter 7

Derek stalks into his loft, with Boyd and Erica flanking him — Boyd at his right shoulder, where an alpha's first would follow — and startles at the sight of Isaac on the couch with his chemistry homework.

Isaac looks up at him. His mouth quirks. "Busy night?"

He glances to Erica and Boyd, neither of whom smell of blood, but both of whom smell of honest sweat. Erica smells lightly of something briny and sweet that he knows he's never going to ask about.

"You think?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

"You should've skipped lacrosse practice," Erica says, flinging herself gleefully next to him. Boyd actually cracks a smile when Isaac wrinkles his nose at her bringing her sweat and sex smells closer to him.

"I offered to," Isaac says, simply. "But Stiles said you'd want me to stay put. She said we needed at least one werewolf at practice so nobody'd notice us all going missing at once."

Derek breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, feels his pulse roar his fury for him. That a human who hadn't even officially joined his pack dared to order one of his betas? Had that human been anybody but Stiles, he'd be ready to rip their throat out.

Isaac's heartbeat jumps, most likely an automatic response to an adult seeming angry at him. Erica looks up at him, crooks her red lips in a smile that's at once reassurance and challenge, while Boyd raises an eyebrow.

But it was Stiles. Stiles, who is clearly working on bonding with his betas; Stiles, who seems at least interested in joining his pack; Stiles, who has separated herself from McCall. And he's not about to _fault_ Isaac for listening. She'd been his major line to Derek at the time.

"Are you mad at me?" Isaac asks. His voice is strong, showing no fear and only a hint of caution. "Should I have called you?"

"No," he says. "I'll talk to her —" His betas all tense. " _Just_ talk. About joining the pack."

He doesn't know if he's irritated or pleased by the way they all relax.

He joins Erica and Isaac on the couch. Carefully, slowly, he heaves his legs up and onto Isaac. Erica shoots him a look, before she reaches out to tousle Isaac's hair. Boyd slumps into the one space left, at the end of the couch, and Erica crawls so that she's curled between them. Derek doesn't miss that she sits mostly in Boyd's lap, and also doesn't miss the sudden uptick in Boyd's heartbeat. If Erica or Isaac notice — and they must; they're closer — they give no sign of it.

They really are like puppies, he thinks. As free with affection as they are likely to chew on each other.

Derek absorbs the heat, the presence of his pack. It's not like the piles his family collapsed into as the moon set after their runs, not like the desperate, fevered way he and Laura curled into each other during New York's colder nights. But it's warm, relaxing, soporific, and seems to ease his mind enough to let him think.

"Isaac, Boyd," he says. "From now on, you tail Whittemore. Boyd, keep your cover; Isaac, I don't care what you have to skip. I'll excuse any absences."

"And me?" Erica asks.

Derek considers. She'd be conspicuous tailing Whittemore. "Stay close to McCall and the Argent girl. If Stiles formally joins the pack, check in with her during school hours."

It's Erica's turn to wrinkle her nose in distaste. "Do I have to _get close_ to McCall? Stiles is more fun. And she's got some idea of what she's doing."

Another uptick in Boyd's heartbeat. God save him from teenaged relationship drama.

"No," he says, very patiently. "But see how close Allison Argent lets you. With Gerard in town, we need to keep an eye on her."

"But isn't he just an old man?" Isaac asks. "And he's the principal, too. No way she'd want anything to do with him."

"Gerard is crazier than the rest of the Argent family put together. We don't have the _luxury_ of ignoring him." Derek pauses, lets that sink in before he adds, "Unless you'd like more survival lessons?"

"Don't mind Isaac! I'll keep an eye on her," Erica says quickly. 

Derek doesn't smirk.

* * *

The following afternoon, he parks the Camaro at the end of the Stilinskis' street, makes his way to their house on foot. Only the Jeep is in the driveway; the window tempts him. It'd be faster, surer.

But he thinks of Peter, of the rabbit-fast beat of Stiles's heart and the flicker of her eyes as she pressed her fingertips low on her ribcage. And heads for the front door. He leans against the doorbell, doesn't bother to suppress his smirk when Stiles opens the door and glares. She's fully dressed today, fitted plaid overshirt and graphic tee over jeans that cling, and her hair's a long, windblown fall around her shoulders. He wants to run his fingers through it.

"What the _hell_ , Derek," she snaps. Then she jerks her head sharply, inviting him in. "Ugh, come in before Mrs. Brzezicki sees you."

She swings the door wide. Derek follows her in. He turns to close the door and sees curtains twitch in the house across the street. Mrs. Brzezicki, no doubt; he doesn't mention it to Stiles. Instead, he follows her up to her room and, once again, tries not to watch the flex of her legs as she climbs the stairs.

"So what's going on, big guy?" Stiles asks as she flops onto her bed. The motion stirs the air in the room, and he inhales the peppermint-tangerine-brine-sugar scents that all mean, in one way or another, Stiles Stilinski. On a faintly deeper inhale, he notices the stale scent of old blood. It's strongest from the closet —

Oh. He jerks his gaze away from the closet, halfway hopes she didn't see his nostrils flare.

He makes sure to keep his voice flat. "You told Isaac to stay at practice." 

"Well, yeah —"

"Without consulting me. You ordered _my_ beta without asking me what I wanted from him?"

Stiles flushes. He watches the pink stripe appear across her nose and cheeks, highlighting the dusting of freckles across her nose and casting her moles into sharp relief.

"I didn't mean to undermine your authority."

"You didn't. He thought you were relaying my orders."

"Yeeeeeah," she agrees, hedging. Her heartbeat picks up, but she meets his stare evenly.

Derek flashes his eyes at her. She turns his instincts into such a tangled mess that he doesn't know whether he's angry or proud when she doesn't drop her gaze, keeps meeting him eye to eye. Part of him wants to pin her to the wall with his jaw hinged over her pale throat, right where the pulse beats too quickly. Part of him wants to push her down on her bed, keep her in place with his hips and bury his nose between her breasts, where sweat gathers.

The rest of him wonders if he's crazy.

So instead he takes in a deep breath and flashes his eyes again. Again, she holds his stare.

"Stiles," he says, slowly, throws as much you're-an-idiot into his voice as he can, "exactly where do you think you're going to fit into the pack?"

Her response is a pole-axed, "Uhhhhh..."

Right. She hadn't thought about it. Of course she hadn't; she's human. She doesn't know anything about werewolf pack structure, and how it differs from the pop culture understanding of actual wolf pack structures. Not that pop culture is even remotely right about the way wolves run their packs.

Still. She has no reason to know that she's halfway trying to shove herself in as a co-alpha. As the other half of an alpha pair.

Derek raises an eyebrow. "Using my authority to order one of my betas around? Refusing to submit? If you wanted to get married, you could have said so at Jungle." 

Stiles actually chokes. 

Probably only a terrible person would take such unholy glee in making a sixteen year old girl choke on air, but he has no illusions about himself, and Stiles has driven him up the fucking wall before. A little payback doesn't seem so terrible.

"Think," he says, more deliberately this time, "about where you fit into the pack."

And then he heads down the stairs and out the door. The Sheriff has just pulled into the drive, and there's no missing the narrow-eyed, considering look Sheriff Stilinski gives him.

As Derek passes, the Sheriff rolls down his window.

Derek stops, waits.

"I expect you and Isaac for Sunday dinner tomorrow night. Bring your shiny, happy selves and a dessert meant for human consumption," the Sheriff says.

"What time?"

The Sheriff gives him a ruthlessly controlled smile. "Seven."

* * *

Derek swings the Camaro by the Argent house. Just as he wouldn't staff out the kanima, he would never dream of letting his betas approach this neighborhood unsupervised with Gerard Argent in town. As it is, he only lets the Camaro crawl up to the edge of the neighborhood, listens for traffic and chatter above the car's snarling engine.

As best he can tell, there are five new bodies in the neighborhood, likely Gerard's hunters, plus Gerard himself. Before the — _before_ , when the Hale pack had a strong alpha, a committed emissary, three adult betas with good combat conditioning, and Derek and Laura, the increase would have been worrying. 

Now? Three newly bitten betas, Scott McCall, and, well, him? The thought of five new hunters and the lead soldier of the Argent family very nearly makes him want to panic.

It's his fault Gerard Argent is here. It's his fault that his uncle went rogue, his fault that Kate Argent ever even targeted his family and then died for it. It's his own fault the Hale pack emissary wants nothing to do with him.

Derek drives away before the hunters can notice him. He heads to Deaton's clinic, but he knows even as he pulls into the parking lot that Scott is there. He doesn't think their tentative truce will last through him trying to interact with Deaton. Relations have been strained since he returned, and worse since the incident with the trunk of his car.

So he returns to the loft. His betas have gathered again. This time, they have numerous white cartons laid out on his general purpose table. Derek draws in a breath redolent of spices and beef and pork and pack, and forces his mouth not to curl into a satisfied smile. They went to the good place, the one that doesn't deliver and only does pick up if you beg, preferably if you beg in decent Cantonese, and brought it back to his loft.

They all stare hopefully at him as he moves toward the table.

"Well?" He says, lets a touch of authority snap into his tone. "Were you going to eat out of the cartons?"

They exchange a glance that is simultaneously hopeful and guilty. As if they expected him to kick them out — and possibly over being the kinds of heathens who eat takeout from the box.

"Isaac, show them where the plates are."

"Not forks?" Isaac asks.

Derek pauses before he answers. He's made his point to Isaac physically in the past, but while he expects at least some amount of obedience, he has no real interest in instilling the kind of dread that Isaac's father enjoyed.

"If any of you doesn't know how to use chopsticks, it's time you learned."

* * *

On Sunday, he leaves Isaac at home with the instructions to either find a way to check in on Whittemore or figure out what the Sheriff would think was a dessert meant for human consumption. He sends a text to Boyd before he heads out, then meets his steadiest beta at the far edge of the teen's neighborhood.

Boyd's heartrate changes as they near the woods.

"Aren't the hunters patrolling those?"

"Preserve is public use," Derek says. When Boyd's eyes narrow, he adds, "They have to play subtle. Too many potential witnesses on a Sunday afternoon."

"No crossbows?"

"Probably," he agrees.

He sets an easy, loping pace and makes sure to stay to the trails. The key here is to be visible while seeming human and allowing his senses to check the area the trails don't cover. The Preserve is actually a wide, sprawling area, so his plan is hardly perfect and his mental understanding of how the hunters have been moving in his woods won't be comprehensive, but it will be better than nothing.

The thing is, the signs of hunter presence are all old. They're all at least a week old.

Derek stops in the middle of Rowan Trail and tilts his head back. The early spring air is cool against his skin. Dry branches rustle above his head, and yards away, children run and shout. He ignores all that, letting his mouth fall open to moisten the air.

No. The hunters were here days ago, and haven't been back. They're hunting something else now.

If it were only Chris and Victoria Argent, Derek thinks he might bring them in on the kanima. Chris and Victoria aren't allies, but they could be useful tools, if he could only figure out how to direct them while staying out of the line of fire. But with Gerard and the new muscle in town...

"They moved on?" Boyd looks at him with serious dark eyes. He turns in a circle, calmly taking in a forest that has begun to deeply unsettle Derek.

"New prey. Same ground."

"Same town, you mean. They haven't been by in, what, a week?"

"They're hunting the kanima," Derek says. It's the only other thing in town Argents would bother with. Whatever flavor of weird Hinzelmann is, hunters have never noticed it. 

Boyd gives the world at large a dubious look. "Do they even know anything about it?"

"They know they don't like it." That's pretty much all hunters need to know.

"Think they know how to kill it?"

"Their bestiary didn't mention anything special. If it's more complicated than 'cut its throat,' I'm guessing the Argents haven't tried it."

* * *

Derek drops Boyd near his neighborhood, then returns to the loft to find Isaac and Erica in his kitchen. Derek takes a deep breath in, smells peaches, honey, nutmeg, something almondy — amaretto, maybe? But how would two high schoolers get their hands on amaretto? — maple syrup, lemons, the warmth of baking dough. Erica grins at him and opens the oven, taking out a pie with a golden-brown, perfectly latticed crust. Derek doesn't own oven mitts, but she doesn't even bother with a towel.

She really does seem to delight in having a healing factor, constantly testing it, almost always eager to use it.

"Erica," he finds himself snapping, regardless of his obscure pride at the sight of Erica's pain tolerance. "Burns are hard to heal. Don't inflict them on yourself unless you have to."

Erica quirks an eyebrow at him. He glares, deliberately makes eye contact. She holds it for beat, but quickly drops her eyes and rests the pan on the top of the stove.

"Thanks for the help, Erica," Isaac says. To Derek, he adds in a sullen tone, "We made amaretto peach pie."

Derek looks at the bottle of amaretto that Erica has begun to pack into a re-usable grocery bag, along with a Mason jar of honey and a glass bottle of syrup. He raises an eyebrow.

"The key to the liquor cabinet is a lot easier to find when you can sniff it out," Erica says. She grins wickedly and says, "Besides, I've been itching to blow my diet."

Derek nods, jerks his head toward the door. He'll thank her later, if the pie's a success.

Once she's out, Derek turns to Isaac. "So how are you going to check in on Whittemore?"

Isaac graces him with a sharp, almost predatory smile. "I'm going to be his new best friend. Play up the lonely former murder suspect thing, tell him how overbearing and awful you are and how much I hate you. I'm not as good as he is at lacrosse and I don't swim anymore. He'll probably buy it."

"Good thinking," Derek says, a little gruff, and checks his phone to check the time. He's just about to shove it back into his pocket when it vibrates with text message from Stiles.

_my house now come armed 4 bear_

After a moment, another message appears: _its my dad_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me so long! As anyone who reads [cast our fevers in stone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1161925) knows, I recently moved from Tennessee to North Carolina and then got laid off from my cushy work-at-home job. The good news is, I have a job interview tomorrow, so I thought I'd shore up my karma and post what I have of the next chapter.
> 
> The bad news is, now that I think about it, I'm not actually sure in which _direction_ I've increased my karma...


	8. Chapter 8

Stiles's words waver on the screen. Derek could swear they're pulling him in, could swear that the alarm that floods through him turns the blood in his veins to ice water. The chill doesn't even spread from one central point; it spiderwebs out from the center of his chest, even as it slips cold fingers down the back of his neck.

"Text Boyd and Erica," he says through a dry mouth. "I'll call Scott."

Isaac stares at him, already fumbling with his phone. "You're calling Scott?"

"She said 'armed for bear,'" Derek snaps, setting off for the Camaro even as he scrolls through his contacts. He's not entirely sure what the hell an 'armed for bear' situation would be — he spends his _life_ armed for things much nastier than bears — but he doesn't need to know.

* * *

A wolf runs about forty miles an hour; Derek can safely take the curving, forested roads from the Preserve to the Stilinski house at about sixty in the Camaro without risking being pulled over. Isaac's knuckles whiten around the oh shit handle, but he manages not to rip it off.

Scott, naturally, never picks up his phone. Derek is getting heartily sick of the little omega who doesn't even seem to bother protecting a girl who should, by rights, be his packmate. But Scott's not his problem right now; instead, he needs to try and remember the layout of the Stilinski house, try to figure out how best to get in quickly.

Trees and road blur by. He's taken this path, made the run or the drive, enough times that it's automatic. Derek parks at an awkward angle to the Stilinski driveway, notes the squad car, the jeep, the unfamiliar black SUV.

He breathes in, and understands completely why Stiles texted him.

It's a complicated mixture of scents: a human skin base note that reminds him, vaguely, of both Kate and Allison, though more of Chris. Metal, both hot and cold. Gun oil, black powder. The sharp floral note of wolfsbane.

Argents.

He lets himself in the front door, notes that the deadbolt for once hasn't been thrown, as if Stiles was hoping for backup, and finds Gerard Argent talking to the Sheriff in their homey living room. The old snake is leaning forward, staring intently at the Sheriff, who looks back with an expression that gives absolutely nothing away. Even his heartbeat is a steady, confident thump beneath a red shirt.

Stiles, however, stinks of sweat, and her heart pounds rabbit fast, pushing blood preylike through her body. She's not in the room with her father — she's in the kitchen, if he's any judge — but she must be hyper aware of Argent's presence in her house. Her blatant fear should make the primal, animal instincts he carries want to pounce, to swipe, to dig his teeth into her soft flesh and feast. But instead her smelling and sounding like helpless prey makes rage boil his blood, spreads fury under his skin like smoke building inside a pipe bomb.

"I honestly can't justify it," the Sheriff says, without even the faint uptick of a lie. "Anyone I could assign to the school would still be on call with dispatch, so they might have to leave."

"Of course, of course," Argent says, grandfatherly. Derek hates every white hair on his head, every drawled, kind-sounding syllable from a throat badly in need of aerating. "But you understand the need for added security, I'm sure? After the awful events of earlier this semester."

"Oh, absolutely," Sheriff Stilinski agrees. He hasn't yet looked away from Argent, though Derek is sure the human has noticed his presence. Derek is reminded, strangely, of a mongoose watching a snake, or a wolf watching the death throes of a deer. "If I could, I'd have assigned a deputy to patrol the place night and day, after Stiles and Miss Argent were trapped in the school."

"So I'll have the Sheriff's Department's full support if I broach the idea of hiring a private security firm for the school?"

Oh, what a neat little trap. Derek opens his mouth wide, takes in a long, silent breath to stifle the urge to growl. His hands ache with the need to step up behind Gerard Argent, grip his chin in one hand, his forehead in the other, and twist until he hears the snap.

The Sheriff arches an eyebrow. "Kind of overkill with those cameras, don't you think? Unless you don't have anyone monitoring them?"

Argent leans back and laughs. It's a round, full-throated noise that seems to suck up some of the air in the room. "You've got me there. It's just with the incidents at the school — first the bus driver, then the trapped students, and now this most recent break-in — and the killings all over town, well."

"No, I understand," Stilinski says. "Can't blame a man for wanting to protect his family. I certainly want to make sure Stiles will be safe at school. I don't mind setting up a line through dispatch, make sure that if the school needs someone..."

Sheriff Stilinski trails off, then looks over at Derek and widens his eyes. After a moment, Argent realizes that he's no longer alone with the Stilinskis. He turns around.

Derek watches the friendly, reasonable, Mr. Rogers veneer slip for an instant before Argent glues it back up. The old hunter turns to the Sheriff, and, smiling, says, "Ah, I see I've overstayed my welcome."

"Not at all," Stilinski replies in a slightly flat, almost flinty tone that probably means _I wanted you gone the minute you turned onto my street_. He adds, after a moment, "My new guest over there is just early. We weren't expecting him until around seven, and I'm pretty sure Stiles is tearing her hair out about some sort of chicken thing in the kitchen right now."

Derek peels his lips back to show Argent his teeth, remembers a heartbeat too late to dimple his cheeks and crinkle his eyes slightly so it looks more genuine. Argent lifts his chin slightly in response, heart not skipping a beat.

"Well, I felt bad about running out so early last time. Thought I'd offer to help cook," he says, because saying _Stiles called me_ might satisfy the Sheriff, but it will alert Gerard to the fact that he considers the Stilinskis under his protection.

Stilinski seems to accept the explanation with good grace, and Argent retreats back into his 'harmless, kindly human' mask, leaving no trace of his thoughts on his face.

Derek waits a moment, then adds, "Oh, uh, sir," because no way in hell is he admitting to the Sheriff that he knows Gerard Argent by sight and scent, "are you the SUV? I'm parked behind you. If you're leaving, I'll back out."

And let Isaac know that there probably won't be any bloodshed. Not while Argent is committed to seeming harmless to the local authorities.

"Thank you, young man," Argent says, milk-mild, and Derek seethes. He adds, in a faintly hesitant tone — probably playing off his age, trying to seem reluctant to show his forgetfulness, "I'm not sure I caught your name, Mr....?" 

"Derek Hale," he says, and bares his teeth again. 

Recognition flickers in Argent's eyes before he says, "Well, I'd hate to interrupt the Sheriff's plans. The SUV is definitely mine. Thank you for agreeing to see me, Finch."

That last he addresses to the Sheriff, who represses a wince.

"It was a pleasure meeting with you, Mr. Argent. Drive safe."

* * *

The Sheriff closes the door behind Derek, now neatly parked behind the Jeep and the Crown Vic — while Isaac shuffles in the foyer with a pie in both his hands — and turns a flat stare on him. "You want to tell me what the hell you're really doing here, son?"

"Stiles texted me."

Isaac's head jerks up, frantic, but he doesn't say anything.

Stilinski gives him a flat look that tells him exactly how many of his questions Derek didn't just answer, and how many more questions he's raised. But he doesn't question Derek further. Instead, he tells Isaac, "Make yourself at home, son," and turns smartly on his heel. He heads toward the back of the house, to the kitchen. Derek waits a moment, then follows, noting the loveseat in the dining room, the cashmere throw folded on it.

Stiles is pulling meat off a chicken bone, shredding it easily with her fingers. Her motions are sharp, practiced jerks. Derek opens his mouth, breathes in the sugar-tangerine scent of her, the scent of raw flesh, the sour, stale scent of her fear.

"Stiles, you want to explain why you texted Mr. Hale to come over the minute I sent you out of sight?" The Sheriff asks.

Stiles looks between her father and Derek, and then says, quietly, "Because I don't trust Gerard. I wanted — I don't know, someone here who'd believe me that the guy's bad news?"

Derek doesn't miss the hurt that flickers in a brief wince across the Sheriff's face, the way he recoils for an instant.

"Jesus, kid," the Sheriff says, after a moment of awkward silence.

Stiles lifts her chin, as unwilling to back down with her father as she's ever been with Derek — and, he suspects, anyone else. "What, you're telling me you get the same creepy, dangerous vibe off the principal of my high school?"

"He raised a woman capable of murdering eleven people without any real motive," Stilinski points out. "And I have some questions about exactly how he got his job."

"Oh," Stiles says.

Derek almost rolls his eyes, but manages to refrain.

"Yeah, oh." Stilinski eyes him, then says, quietly, "I appreciate you coming, at least, Mr. Hale. Must have been a hell of a text she sent you."

"She told me to come armed for bear," Derek replies. And, after a moment, he says, "Just call me Derek."

"You don't look armed, Derek," Stilinski observes.

Derek doesn't know how to answer that. His first response is to point out that he never does, but he probably shouldn't tell a cop that he carries concealed weapons all the time. Even if, broadly speaking, that's true.

Stilinski stares at him. "I hope you have a permit for whatever the hell you're carrying."

"I'm actually not carrying anything," Derek says, after a strangled pause.

Stilinski arches an eyebrow, then turns to look at his daughter. He flicks his gaze back to Derek, and for a moment he sees exactly where Stiles picked up her observational skills and her analytical mindset. The Sheriff is _sharp_ in much the same way that Stiles is, the kind of sharp that can get someone into trouble.

Or armpit-deep in werewolves.

"I'll — go see how Isaac's doing," Derek offers, because little as he likes to back down, he needs to distract the Sheriff from whatever the hell he's putting together.

"You do that," Stilinski agrees, tone mild. As Derek moves past him to leave the kitchen, the Sheriff asks — tone still mild, but not idly curious, "You pick up some hand-to-hand in New York, son? Seem to recall a couple of assault charges on your record."

Derek would be an idiot to answer. So he just tilts his head for a moment, then offers, "The pie's peach amaretto."

And then he's out of the room, moving quickly and quietly through the Stilinski house. He can hear the Sheriff interrogating his daughter about who the hell she's friends with. He gets an elaborate, rambled deflection, and then gives up and begins to quiz Stiles about their dinner plans.

"Croissants stuffed with shredded chicken, kale and goat cheese!" Stiles sounds triumphant.

The Sheriff groans. "This is because I wouldn't buy the new kevlar vest, isn't it?"

Stiles replies, merciless, "Goat cheese is a healthy alternative to regular dairy. It has fewer calories, less cholesterol, and less fat."

"And the kale?" The Sheriff pronounces the word like if he says it hatefully enough, he can erase the vegetable's existence.

Derek doesn't hear Stiles's answer, because he steps out the front door and listens intently for Isaac's heartbeat.

"Come on in," he says. After a moment, he adds, "Bring the pie."

* * *

Dinner is far, far less awkward than the last time, despite the Sheriff's suspicions. Stilinski seems committed to making Isaac feel welcome and at ease, and while Derek doesn't quite rate the same consideration, the Sheriff seems to have accepted him, however reluctantly, as a fitting person for Stiles to be around.

Stiles, of course, never seems to notice any of the awkwardness. Whether she genuinely doesn't see it or is just good at pretending she doesn't, Derek can't tell, but she's her usual blend of blithe rambling, biting sarcasm, and jittery energy. She steers the conversation carefully away from her falling-out with Scott, and away from her father's work, but indulges Isaac in talking about how much he and Danny have improved, and how well they think the lacrosse team is going to do. Isaac and Derek, in turn, indulge her when she rants about the dance classes she picked up — street jazz two nights a week, in addition to the belly dance three nights a week — and how poorly her choreography for her troupe's performance is coming along.

Hell, even the croissants are good. They're flaky and buttery, though Derek is sure no actual butter was involved, and the goat cheese and chicken work surprisingly well together. She went maybe a little overboard on the kale, but otherwise, he could practically inhale the damned things. Isaac does his own vacuum impression, which draws an amused, indulgent look from the Sheriff.

Derek's used to ignoring his appetite in front of humans, but he goes back for seconds on the pie. He tries give the Sheriff a significant, prompting look without Isaac seeing.

When the Sheriff asks, "You made this from scratch, kid?" all un-prompted, Derek sits back and lets Isaac have his moment of pride. He gets few enough of them as it is.

Later, Derek volunteers to wash dishes. The Sheriff joins him.

"You know something's going on with her and Scott," Stilinski says, ignoring the dishes in favor of staring at the back of Derek's head. "You know exactly what the teenaged drama is, you know exactly why she called _you_ at the first sign of her principal within two feet of me, and you've been in my house without my invitation. I've been lenient, Derek."

He doesn't say: but lenience runs out.

Derek looks down at the dishes, careful as always of his strength. Even thick, durable porcelain will crack or shatter in his hands. After a moment, he looks up, out the kitchen window, and considers the angles. If he didn't _need_ Stiles — because Stiles brought Lydia with her, and could, if the omega ever pulled his head out of his ass, deliver him Scott — he would tell the Sheriff everything. In a heartbeat. Having the county sheriff as his ally could save his life. Could save Isaac's, or Boyd's, or Erica's. Or Stiles's own.

But he does need Stiles. And she's made it clear that her father is not involved in the supernatural. It's a perfect catch-22: in order to have unfettered access to his human second-in-command, he'd have to do the one thing that would infuriate her into abandoning him.

It is not in a werewolf's nature to compromise. Pack lands belong to the pack or do not. Outsiders have permission to be there or do not. You submit to your alpha — or you reject his authority, in which case, either you leave the pack or die. Derek grinds his teeth and ignores the clash of newer instincts that tell him to put the challenger in his place against older ones that tell him to respect this alpha of a separate pack.

And temporizes.

"Scott… left her in a bad situation. An unsafe one." The words are hard to string together, harder to force out from behind his teeth. But he makes himself say it, editing the truth sentence by slow sentence. "Because he was at dinner with the Argent family. And then he didn't understand when she started pulling away. I can't — I don't want to say more without her permission." 

"Jesus," Stilinski breathes, and suddenly the Sheriff's hand has closed around his shirt, gathering the neckline of his henley and the fabric backing its buttons all in one grip. "What the hell happened? Tell me, goddamnit, I have a right to know."

Derek tenses, his entire body suddenly ready to respond to an attack. He looks down at the pale fist, then back up at Stilinski's face. He doesn't say anything; doesn't have to, because Stilinski's pale eyes flicker down, then back up, and he lets go.

"That's all you're going to tell me?" The Sheriff asks, and there's no mistaking the note of banked fury in his voice.

"Yeah," he says. He puts the last dish in the dishwasher and closes it. "She needs at least one friend who hasn't betrayed her trust."

Stiles breaks the tension between Derek and her father when she barges into the kitchen, dragging Isaac by the wrist. Derek can't help the way he glares at her hands on his beta, suddenly both possessive of her and protective of Isaac.

"Come on, I promised Isaac we'd watch _Inception_. Which means someone has to either move his car or drive us to the Redbox. Or the slum-o-video."

* * *

"So what was that about?" Stiles demands while Isaac runs into the dingy video store with Derek's credit card and the instruction to rent only Christopher Nolan films, hair a frizzed, wavy, tangled halo around her pale face and wide eyes.

Derek keeps an eye on the store through its grimy windows. "Your dad knows something is going on with you and Scott."

Stiles tenses. "What did you tell him?"

He explains, and slowly, slowly, her shoulders and spine ease. The pent up energy fizzles out, leaving her slumped in his front seat, and Derek reaches over to press his hand against her shoulder.

* * *

Later, when Derek sits between Stiles and Isaac on the couch and the Sheriff has dozed off in his armchair — which smells almost more of gun oil, black powder, and a sharp, medicinal lime smell than it does of chair leather or upholstery glue — Stiles looks over at him before leaning into his shoulder. It feels right, to have a member of his pack so close, and righter, that it's Stiles pressed into him. 

Softly, she says, "I've been thinking about where I fit into your pack."

Derek doesn't want to have to think about it. Every conflicting instinct has gone quiet. It's _easy_ to have her next to him, _easy_ to let Isaac relax against him, initiating physical contact for the first time.

He's quiet a moment, pretends to be watching the movie, when really, he's half-listening to the high-pitched whine he hears under the movie's audio. Stiles nudges him with her elbow, so he says, "Yeah?"

"And then I talked to Dr. Deaton yesterday..."

That might not actually be the worst news he's heard all week, but it doesn't exactly fill him with confidence. He can't help tensing, waiting for her to drop whatever the hell bombshell Deaton's loaded her with and pointed her at him.

"He mentioned that most alphas have a human — kind of a magician, kind of a diplomat, mostly just a pressure valve? An emissary? I mean, I'm not a magician, like, at all, and my idea of diplomacy is mostly just talking people into a stupor so they nod along with whatever I want, but —"

The thing that surprises him is that it actually _doesn't_ surprise him, doesn't horrify him, doesn't make him uncomfortable.

He takes a moment to remember his older brother, Phillip, who had been apprenticing with Deaton. Stiles is much more into gleefully poking things with sticks than Phillip had been since Derek was about four, but they share the same curiosity, the same sense of thrumming vitality, the same enthusiasm for things no human should be enthusiastic about.

His parents had always assumed that if Laura would be the next Hale alpha, then Phillip would be the next Hale emissary. His brother had always been the one closest to Laura. Derek and Laura hadn't been close until the — until after. And Derek knows there's no question: he's not about to let another human closer to him than Stiles. Not ever. Not again.

"Is that… I mean, I know it's kind of presumptous, but —"

"Stiles, shut up and watch your stupid movie," he says. After a moment, over her spluttering that Christopher Nolan is a genius, he adds, "But yeah, you could… we'll talk about it later."

* * *

He didn't actually mean 'text about it at go the fuck to bed o'clock,' but that's apparently what Stiles heard. She's lucky he's already restless with the thought of his tiny pack having an emissary — _needing_ an emissary — itching under his skin. Otherwise, he'd just mute his phone and go to sleep.

At about three, he replies to one of her texts with _It takes a commit. Usually tattoo, sometimes a brand. Some emissaries exchange rings with the pack._

Then he rolls over and tries not to imagine the Hale triskele tracing along her shoulderblades, the center of her back, its lines stark against the white of her skin. He mutes the phone, sure she'll blow it up with text messages panicking about needles.

When he wakes, she's sent him more than a dozen messages, all predictably panicky.

Derek drops Isaac off at school and heads to the vet clinic.

Deaton never exactly looks surprised, but he arches his brows in a way that suggests to Derek that he wasn't expected to show his face around his mother's emissary. Or possibly around an innocent man he shoved in the trunk of his car on the advice of two teenagers.

"You've talked to Stiles," Derek says, simply, flatly, and folds his arms over his chest.

Deaton's placid expression takes on the faintest hint of a smile. It's not really present in his mouth; Alan Deaton is one of the few humans Derek has ever met who can smile, not only with the corners of his eyes, but with the air around him. It's not even really a smile so much as relaxation and a sense that Deaton is pleased with him.

Deaton says, "She shows some potential," and then jerks his head to indicate one of his back rooms. There, without saying a word about it, he puts Derek to work hauling around big metal tubs. There doesn't seem to be any real purpose in it, but Derek isn't a vet, and wasn't nearly so fastidious as Deaton about his work space when he was studying fire science and prepping for his EMT-Basic courses.

Besides, having something physical to do helps ground him, gives him something to focus on other than the protective instincts of a new alpha, which tell him in no uncertain terms that Alan Deaton has interfered with his pack and should have his throat ripped out — quite possibly by Derek's teeth — as a lesson.

"Potential?"

"As, essentially, a druid and emissary. Although I suspect the higher level druidic magic may elude her; it may be best for her to investigate Polish folk magic, should she need to perform a more complex working. But I believe she more than qualifies for the ability to use the basic tools of the emissary — as most humans do — and, moreover, is better able to understand the wolf mindset than the average human." 

Deaton looks at him for a beat, holding a still, perfect silence.

Derek says nothing.

"She's also a flexible thinker," Deaton adds. "She could be an asset as an emissary."

"Or she could get me killed," Derek says, more because he doesn't like that Deaton saw it before he did than because he really thinks Stiles's decisions would ever result in his death.

Deaton merely smiles. With his mouth, this time. "Or that."

Yeah, Derek gets the feeling that Deaton would be thrilled — as thrilled as he ever is — with that outcome. It doesn't even really surprise him.

* * *

On Wednesday, Isaac texts Derek: _J's $$$ tix 4 rave_. Before Derek has puzzled out what the hell that even means, Isaac adds _he seems rlly out of it_.

Oh. Jackson is — buying tickets for a rave, while seeming out of it. Derek rolls his eyes at the thought of his stupid teenagers being involved in yet more blatantly illegal nonsense. He has a sudden wistful realization, that spikes pain under his ribcage, that absolutely none of this bullshit would be happening if Laura were still his alpha.

Derek forwards the information to Stiles, who has switched from blowing up his phone about him expecting her to apply needles to her skin and is now frantic about the possibility that the Argents are going to kill Scott.

Stiles replies to his text with _??? Can we actually infiltrate a rave? Do we know where it's going to be? Holy crap how much are tickets anyway? Think we can break in like with Jungle?_

Derek sends her a simple _Don't know. Is Scott in immediate danger?_

 _Allison's mom knows_ , Stiles replies.

That would be a yes, then. Even though nobody can see it, Derek rolls his eyes. He texts Isaac to find out where the rave will be and then report back to Stiles.

* * *

By Wednesday night, they've all convened, not at the abandoned train station, but at Deaton's. Derek picks up his betas in the Camaro — and realizes, with a jolt, that he probably needs to make sure Isaac at least knows how to drive, never mind buy him a car — while Stiles and Lydia bring Scott and Allison, respectively.

Stiles spreads the blueprint of the warehouse out on one of Deaton's lab tables. She smooths her hands over it, eyes intent on identifying the entrances and exits.

Allison frowns at the blueprints. "Okay, so a kanima is basically a werewolf, right? It'll have all the same weaknesses, won't it?"

"This one doesn't exactly have the same strengths," Stiles points out. "I mean. I've never heard of werewolves paralyzing people. Not part of the lore, and not something Scott's ever pulled on me. Might have made it easier for him, back when Peter wanted him to kill me."

Lydia cuts a hand through the air. "Work from the principle that the same basic weaknesses apply: wolfsbane, mistletoe, mountain ash. Otherwise, we'll never come up with any kind of plan."

Derek spares a moment to wonder when she learned about the effects of mistletoe and mountain ash — those aren't generally associated with werewolves in the folk tales, for which the Hales have always been privately thankful — before realizing that she and Stiles have access to the Argent bestiary. Which reminds him that the Hales maintained their own library, and Peter scanned most of it in before the fire. There should be a copy of all those files somewhere.

Maybe he'll have Stiles and Lydia find it, once he's dealt with the kanima.

"No plan survives first contact, anyway," Erica says, not at all noticing his distraction, and Boyd drifts forward to look at the blueprints.

"What happens if we trap it?" Boyd asks.

"How do you even trap a were-lizard?" It's Isaac who tears whatever Boyd's beginning to plan down, his tone biting. Erica rests a hand on Boyd's arm, not that Boyd needs the help staying calm.

Lydia gives them all a look as if this entire brainstorming session is beneath her. "Mountain ash."

"What, ring the entire place in powder?" Stiles traces her fingers along a list of measurements. "Can we do that? And what do we do if we get it trapped, anyway?"

"You leave it to me, Boyd, and Erica," Derek says. "Between the three of us, we should be able to incapacitate it. Isaac, you, Stiles, and Lydia will try and get a line on its master."

Scott snorts. "And where do I fit into your master plan?"

Derek reminds himself that he can't throw Scott at things. For one, it's not like additional head trauma will make him more helpful or less obnoxious. For another, he needs Scott. Probably. And for a third, Stiles would never forgive Derek for hurting a member of her family, no matter how said member had hurt her before, or how unhelpful said member was.

"Didn't know you wanted to be a part of it," Derek says. "You've been pretty clear that I'm not your alpha."

Scott's mouth twists into a scowl for a bare instant, but his more human, more standard mulish face is back on too quickly for Allison or the other humans to notice. Derek hopes Deaton suspects how much closer Scott's wolf is to the surface, how much louder its demands are without the stability of a pack. If he didn't want to clip Scott around the head until he stopped being obstinate, he'd feel pity.

Strength isn't the only thing that the pack gives you. It can provide a sense of balance, a place of belonging, leave you the _space_ to listen to your quieter human side beneath the howling of your wolf. But Scott seems unwilling to learn that.

"Well, it's not like I can leave Stiles in your hands. You almost got her killed last time I left the two of you alone."

The human hears an insecure teenager being a brat. The alpha hears a direct challenge to his ability to protect his pack. Derek closes eyes that have begun to twinge, just slightly, as they flared red. He takes a deep breath in through his mouth, reflexively ignoring the taste of pine-scented antiseptic, cedar chips, air freshener, and wrestles down the instincts that would mean rising to that challenge.

He hears Stiles's heartbeat — always the fastest in the room — speed up. She takes in a deep breath, probably about to launch into either a full-on dressing down, or, more likely, to try and point out that she's her own responsibility. Doesn't need to be protected by werewolves. Certainly doesn't need to be protected by dumbass teen wolves or equally dumb alphas. 

He cuts her off. "Then you'll take Erica's place on my assault team. Erica, you'll play backup outside the line. Allison?"

Before Erica can demand to know why she's been left behind, Boyd places a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes flare a hot gold as she looks over to Derek, a strange contrast with the sunlight-yellow of her curls, but she doesn't say anything.

Allison looks at Erica with blatant distaste before saying, "I'll support Erica outside the line. I'm not as good with close-quarters combat, but I can take the kanima down with a bow, if I have to." The words _if you fuck up and get Scott killed_ linger under what she actually says.

"One last thing," Lydia says, still studying the blueprint with Stiles. The light turns Lydia's hair into a red-gold flame around her head, neatly waving, while Stiles looks messy and half-assembled, her usually brown hair a tangled, golden-brown riot. She smells more of herself and less of blood, today. "Not every human can use mountain ash in the quantity we'll need. Some humans can stretch the resource, but I don't think we have anyone who can do that."

Derek looks to Deaton and raises a brow.

Deaton arches a brow in return. "On the contrary," he says. "I believe Stiles will be able to create the mountain ash barrier. A good first feat for an aspiring emissary."

* * *

They hammer their general ideas into something like a strategy. By Thursday, Deaton has loaded Stiles down with a duffel bag of glistening black powder that makes Derek's skin tingle just to come within five feet of it, and apparently given her an extremely unhelpful crash course on using it.

"I'm skipping school tomorrow," she tells Derek on the phone, once again at the ass end of the night, when he'd personally like to be sleeping.

"Won't the Sheriff notice?"

"Not if I'm not in the house when he gets up."

Derek can't resist a smirk. "Uh huh. And where you going to go to hide?"

"Well, I was thinking of going to see _Red Riding Hood_ again," Stiles points out.

Derek waits a beat, until he finally has to ask, "Really, Stiles?"

"Unless you'll let me rest up at your loft."

It's a bad idea. He knows, as something approximating a responsible adult, that it's a bad idea. But the thought of his nebulous packmate, his proto-emissary sacked out on his couch, the scent of her skin suffusing the cushions as the sun warms it, her hair spread out in a tangle of golden-brown waves— 

"You wouldn't need to rest up," he says, and can't help how rough his voice sounds, "if you just went to sleep now. Go to school, Stiles."

* * *

Derek spends Friday alternating between making sure he's in the best possible condition and sleeping. Which, honestly, falls into making sure he's in the best possible condition. He considers calling the school and telling the office that Isaac is sick, but he doesn't want to give the Argents any indication that something is unusual.

"Isaac, keep an eye on Jackson," he says, before Erica and Isaac pile out of the Camaro. "And skip lacrosse practice."

"Want us rested up for the showdown?" Erica's voice is teasing, but his hearing picks up the faint strain to her tone, and her body language is nervous. "We're not even going to be going up against the kanima."

Derek just fixes her with a look. He lets his eyes flare red, then fade. "No plan survives contact. Erica, stay close to Stiles and Allison today."

Erica grins, then opens the door and closes her hand, surprisingly gently, around Isaac's wrist. They cast long shadows as they tumble, headlong, away from his car and up the stairs, into enemy territory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not super pleased with this chapter, and not super pleased to be ending it here. But this chapter is 5k as it is, and the Rave, I think, needs time all to itself.
> 
> Easter Egg notes: _Red Riding Hood_ really was out in cinema in March of 2011, and fire science+EMT training are pretty standard for becoming a firefighter these days (CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP THE HEADCANON THAT DEREK'S DAD WAS A FIREFIGHTER; blame [Metisket](http://archiveofourown.org/works/862320)). Also, I have kind of stolen Derek's older brother, Phillip, from Metisket. (And, even worse, I've gone and gotten him all charred and crispified, so I can't even give him back.)
> 
> As always, thanks so much commenting, giving kudos, etc., and I simply cannot thank you enough for reading. (Especially this far.) The fact that people are reading this is what keeps me writing it.


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